What Are Your Cellar Faves

A question on another forum asked what the top 5 producers are in your cellar in terms o bottles held. You might think that you could reel them off without checking, but mine certainly surprising to me.

I thought it would be an interesting question here. For those who keep a cellar, what are you top five producers in terms of number of bottles held? (Cellartracker people will have it easier here as they can do a search while others have to count).

For me it is:

1 - Prod del Barbaresco
2- Vieux Donjon
3 - Max. Ferd. Richter
4 - Dom. Vincent Paris
5 - Beaucastel

(Note - in my case I limited it to non BC wines as I have a fair amount of those but they are for the most part a 'drinking' inventory rather than a cellar aging inventoty. If one added the BC content in it would be

1 - Blue Mountain
2 - Prod del Barbaresco
3- Le Vieux Pin
4 - Vieux Donjon
5 - Kettle Valley

[David M. Bueker]

Mine will not shock anyone:

1. Donnhoff (by a wide margin)
2. Rhys
3. Bedrock
4. J. J. Prum
5. Edmunds St. John

Consumption (since I joined CellarTracker in 2004) top 5 largely, but not completely similar:

1. Donnhoff (again by a wide margin)
2. ESJ
3. Rhys
4. Selbach-Oster (which is #6 in my holdings list)
5. Idelwild (my most frequently consumed wines since 2015)

Bedrock is catching up. Prum lags as I age the stuff forever.

Wish we could get Idelwild up here, they look interesting.

[David M. Bueker]

Idlewild’s red blend (Dolcetto, Barbera and a little Nebbiolo) is by far the wine I have drank the most of the last several years.

Will see if they have a BC agent!

...Prum lags as I age the stuff forever.

Same for me with Louis Boillot. By far the most bottles of any producer in my collection, because I kept buying and am still waiting for them to reach an age of drinkability!

[Jenise]

My list doesn't surprise me. I am more a breadth than depth kind of buyer. I typically 3-6 bottles of something I love and rarely buy cases. Last year I did, however, buy two cases of a wine that will have much longevity for a silly price and haven't touched but one bottle of--it is, therefore #2 on my list but hardly a cellar favorite or a wine I've had in the past where wines #1 and #3 definitely deserve their placement. I'll list the top nine which tells the story of who I am better.

Reynvaan
Rasa
Pontet Canet
CVNE
Blue Mountain
Huet
Climens
Woodward Canyon
Vieux Donjon


Consumption is another matter and surprising as the odd bottle aside I really don't buy or cellar Long Shadows wines:

Reynvaan
DeLille
Arcadian
Long Shadows
St. Innocent
Karl Lawrence
CVNE

Delmore (Darren)
Bedrock Wine Co.
Sandlands
Patricia Green Cellars
Tablas Creek
CT Barrel Project (Rasa)

Top 6 with others at less than 4%. Excludes incoming. Except for TC all others are on the "don't buy more" list. Includes about 10 wines received as gifts. Too many in total, but it is a tangible....sigh.

Beringer......KVC/KVC Res./ Private Res. Cab./Pri.Res.Chard

Bollinger Champagne....Grande & Special Cuvee...V & NV

Pegau Res.

Crawley Cabs.......Turnbull Cabs.....tie

Martin Ray Synthesis & Cabs.

Newton Unfiltered Chard.(must include, many great past and future experiences)

Interesting!

# 1 Donnhoff (Nahe), more than double on #2
# 2 Baudry (Chinon), both red and white and, equally, La Pepiere (Muscadet)
# 3 Hofgut Falkenstein (Saar) and, equally, Alfiero Boffa, outstanding Barbera d'Asti and Nizza from single vineyards
# 4 Schoffit (Alsace)
# 5 Merkelbach (Mosel) but my source has gone so I won't find the bottles anymore

Interesting - I am also a Loire fan but we don't have enough representation where I live to really amass a decent cellar segment.

Like Baudry reds although the wait time can be pretty long if you want them at best. Ditto on some whites - I still have a bunch of Closel Savennieres from the 90s

[Jenise]

Another interesting factoid that speaks to our buying habits is # of line items in the cellar. I have about 830 which averages just over 2 bottles per line item. Lots of onesies and twosies--as I said, more breadth than depth.

Agree - I have 1285 different items so also lots of one or two bottle lots to make up for the 17 wines that I have a case or more of.

[David M. Bueker]

2236 different items.

2236 different items.

Does that mean you have 2236 bottles....? Just kidding but you must buy in small numbers. What is your biggest holding of a single wine - any case lots or just 3 or 6?

I often used to buy cases or 6 bottle lots but as prices increased I backed that down so a normal buy for me os 3-4 bb of a given wine or even as low as one or two.

[David M. Bueker]

2236 different items.

Does that mean you have 2236 bottles....? Just kidding but you must buy in small numbers. What is your biggest holding of a single wine - any case lots or just 3 or 6?

I often used to buy cases or 6 bottle lots but as prices increased I backed that down so a normal buy for me os 3-4 bb of a given wine or even as low as one or two.

I have case lots of several things, but I buy lots of singles to experiment. I will often buy a mixed 6 or 12 pack to test out a winery/region, thus 6 or 12 singletons. I have at times bought 24 bottles of a given wine, but not since the 2014 vintage.

Top 5 in cellar:

1. Penfolds
2. Harlan
3. Ridge
4. Pride
5. Marques de Murrieta

I'm on the Harlan list and occasionally buy a bottle of the Estate and usually get 3 bottles of the Maiden. I keep them in storage in the US and since I'm Manila based, I rarely get a chance to drink them which is why I've accumulated quite a bit. I've probably only had 2 bottles over the last 10 years or so. Much of the Penfolds I bought when prices were still reasonable. Pretty much stopped buying since around 2010, although I did pick up half a case of 389 a few months back when it went on sale here at a price I couldn't refuse.

Top 5 consumption:

1. Dr. Loosen
2. Champagne Jean Vesselle
3. Penfolds
4. Piper-Heidsieck
5. Guigal

I had a lot of Loosen, Vesselle, and Guigal because the local distributor would go on a yearly inventory clearance sale and I would pick up cases every year. I'm rather surprised by the Piper-Heidsieck. I guess it's because it's one of the more affordable champagnes here.

Wow. my list is even more biased than I thought it would be. I guess I'm fond of the Mosel and riesling in general! I don't have a great number of bottles of any one producer or wine though. I recently bought a case of Synchromesh rieslings, so that is why they got bumped up on the list (I do have several older vintages too). That is the first time I ever bought a full case of wine: I usually buy 1-3 bottles. The Wynns is the Black Label Cab, which I still have a vertical from 1998. I rarely drink them, and haven't bought one in over five years. McWilliams is all semillon that I also hoard, age and rarely drink. Huet is just, well, Huet!

Selbach-Oster
Dr. Loosen
Weingut Max Ferd. Richter
Synchromesh
Wynns Coonawarra Estate
Domaine Huet
McWilliam's Mount Pleasant Wines
St. Urbans-Hof
Domaine Christian Moreau Père et Fils
Domaine Drouhin Oregon

My list of top 10 present contents is very different from top 10 consumption since 2014 except for the first place. The reason is simple. The remaining contents reflect above all an accumulation of "special occasion only" bottles and a lack of special occasions, especially during the pandemic. For the consumption I also note the average bottle value given by CT.

Contents:

Fèlsina
Armand Rousseau - total CT value €12,000!!! for 9 bottles
Sociando-Mallet
Philippe Foreau
Cos d'Estournel
J-L Chave
C. Joguet
Philippe Alliet
Jaboulet Ainé
Jamet

For consumption

Fèlsina - 44
Mas Amiel - Roussillon - 10
Dauverge Ranvier - S Rhône - 8
Henry Marionnet - Touraine - 11
Dom.du Cros - Marcillac - 12
Dom.Courteillac- Bord.Sup - 11
Ch Courac - S Rhône - 8
Jamet - N Rhône -240 !!
Oratoire St.Martin - S Rhône - 19
Ch.Poujeaux - Moulis - 34

For my palate, it's clear that I am finding good QPR in S Rhône. On the other hand I'm fairly sure that I will find that my enjoyment of the bottles from Rousseau will not live up to their stratospheric current value.

[David M. Bueker]

It’s scary to look at the auction values for high end Burgundies. I ended up selling a small handful where the price got so out of alignment with potential enjoyment. I kept some others, but struggle with drinking them. We’ll see.

[Jenise]

Agree - I have 1285 different items so also lots of one or two bottle lots to make up for the 17 wines that I have a case or more of.

That's higher than I expected from you given the number of notes you write that reference case purchasing! However, I'm sure you still have a higher per-line-item average than I do.

Agree - I have 1285 different items so also lots of one or two bottle lots to make up for the 17 wines that I have a case or more of.

That's higher than I expected from you given the number of notes you write that reference case purchasing! However, I'm sure you still have a higher per-line-item average than I do.

I have 223 wines of which I have a half case or more. Much of my more recently purchased wine came in 6 bb cases rather than 12 bb..

[Jenise]

And isn't age a factor too? Buying cases when you're 30 makes a different kind of sense than buying cases at age 60.

True, that!