Instant Cellar Madness

I'm just starting to get out from under quite a bit of school work, which has really put a damper on wine travels and tasting. But I have been doing a little wine reading this weekend, and I just had to comment on one article in particular.


Apparently, the fashion these days for a lot of the upwardly mobile owners of McMansions around the country is not just to build a wine cellar but to pay a consultant to fill this brand new cellar with thousands of bottles of wine. These buyers know little about wine; they have to have a fully stocked cellar to impress their friends. They have little preference for what's actually in it -- as long as someone will be impressed.

Now this is just wrong. Of course, as a wine geek who has long dreamed of building a real wine cellar but still cannot afford it, I confess to a certain amount of jeolousy. But it's not that simple.

I can easily live with the fact that lots of people out there can afford a lot more top notch wines than I can, as well as elaborate cellars. But buying a ton of wine mostly for show is frustrating and wasteful. First, as the article above says, these people are making wines already expensive and hard to find even more so. Secondly, they are assembling a large collection of wine in a relatively short period of time, which means that much of that wine will be maturing at about the same time. And, in all likelihood, they have no idea of when to open these wines. You just know much will be wasted because it won't be enjoyed at or near peak.

It just makes you want to...arghhhhhhhhhh!