How big is your cellar?

[Comte Flaneur]

A fun poll and anonymous!

[Racer Chris]

Approximately 60 square feet.

[Blanquito]

Wow, one cellar over 4500!

[StBlGT]

Wow, one cellar over 4500!

I know, right! I have around 300, and I thought that was a lot....I guess I was wrong by looking at some of these bottle numbers haha.

[Winona Chief]

Come on Blanquito, isn’t that you with the 5000 bottle cellar?

I honestly stopped keeping track about 5 years ago, think I’m around 1400 bottles.

Chris Bublitz

[JimHow]

I'm right at 900, give or take a bottle.
I have large hands and feet as well, if you know what I mean....

[Blanquito]

Come on Blanquito, isn’t that you with the 5000 bottle cellar?

I honestly stopped keeping track about 5 years ago, think I’m around 1400 bottles.

Chris Bublitz

Not I! I’m a little over 2000 these days, and it’s in shrink mode from here to the Great Tasting Room in the Sky.

[Nicklasss]

My cellar is pretty smal compare to the average of BWEers cellars. But, i can't add more at the moment for few reasons:

1. With 3 kids, no room left in my small house.
2. I prefer to consume wines, than store it for a long time. I want to keep a bottle 20 years max.
3. I don't know many people that like wines like we do. So regular very good wines at 20-40$ Are easy to buy anytime.

[JimHow]

I’ve never understood the “my house is too small argument...” I’ve heard that from Stefan and others for years, and now Nicola... I mean, you can fit like 2,000 bottles in a closet. There may be other reasons why people have smaller collections, but the “my house is too small” argument doesn’t wash with me.

[William P]

I'm around 240 and I doubt I'll get much bigger.

Bil

[jal]

I'm at 350 give or take, it used to be closer to 1,000.
And contrary to what Jim says, room in an apartment is limited, outside storage is inconvenient, and large hands and large feet mean big gloves and big shoes

[jckba]

My cellar is essentially half of my basement, 40 by 12 and is actively cooled with dual through the wall whisperkool cooling units. Should have probably went with a split system as these units are not exactly quiet when they kick on. And while I have a lot of wine downstairs, there is luckily by design still room for a lot more.

[OrlandoRobert]

If I can reflect here, I made a huge mistake never doing a built-in cellar in our main house many years ago. First it was the cost, my 20k cellar would cost me a 150k kitchen upgrade. A wife thing. And then a bit later, we figured we would move within 5 years. And here we still are, same house, same kitchen, no cellar.

So I have four wine fridges, one in the office, two in the main house and one in the beach house. I’m likely to do a built-in at the beach for about 300 bottles. The majority of my stuff is in offsite. The cost is stiff but it’s safer there from power outage issues, and I keep my grubby paws off wine that needs time! I keep cases of daily drinkers in a walk-in closet.

I’ve always been generous of your bastiges that have cellars! Here in FL, we dig down 2 feet and hit water.

[Nicklasss]

I’ve never understood the “my house is too small argument...” I’ve heard that from Stefan and others for years, and now Nicola... I mean, you can fit like 2,000 bottles in a closet. There may be other reasons why people have smaller collections, but the “my house is too small” argument doesn’t wash with me.

On the facts, you're probably right Jim. Arguing that my house is too small, is like arguing Lynch Bages is a Second Growth, completely false.

Let's add some details :

- I have 1 decent closet that is located on the north wall so conditions are a bit cooler there, and that have room.
- All other closets are full of the kids stuff (toys, clothing) and MC stuff (clothing), all kind of tools (hammer nails to steam machine to remove bend on clothing!). By the way, i might have some bottles of wines, the real value in the house is MC clothing. When i moved to BC in the past, made the inventory/value for insurance purpose, and MC clothing value = 5 X the wine...
- i could store some bottles on the couch (is it healthy to watch tv standing up?) or get rid of some plates and bowls to use that space, or fill the bath with bottles (where would i sleep when big different with MC?) as we have a shower available downstair, but i'm still resisting very hardly to these very good solutions.

[OrlandoRobert]

I’ve never understood the “my house is too small argument...” I’ve heard that from Stefan and others for years, and now Nicola... I mean, you can fit like 2,000 bottles in a closet. There may be other reasons why people have smaller collections, but the “my house is too small” argument doesn’t wash with me.

On the facts, you're probably right Jim. Arguing that my house is too small, is like arguing Lynch Bages is a Second Growth, completely false.

Let's add some details :

- I have 1 decent closet that is located on the north wall so conditions are a bit cooler there, and that have room.
- All other closets are full of the kids stuff (toys, clothing) and MC stuff (clothing). By the way, i might have some bottles of wines, the real value in the house is MC clothing. When i moved to BC in the past, made the inventory/value for insurance purpose, and MC clothing value = 5 X the wine...
- i could store some bottles on the couch (is it healthy to watch tv standing up?) or get rid of some plates and bowls to use that space, or fill the with bottles (where would i sleep when big different with MC?) as we have a shower available downstair, but i'm still resisting very hardly to these very good solutions.

Trade in a kid?

Think about it. They are messy, cost a lot and take up space.

My kid just wrapping up college costs me about 2 Petrus per month. Sh*t ain’t cheap.

[Nicklasss]

My kid just wrapping up college costs me about 2 Petrus per month. Sh*t ain’t cheap.

3 kids = 6 Petrus per month.

[JimHow]

Wow, looking at those poll results, we've got some serious collectors here!

[Blanquito]

Is Petrus the new birth control?

[stefan]

I have wine stored in five locations in our Texas house. I converted my den to a wine room a long time ago. This holds the bulk of our wine at 61F-66F, depending on the location in the room and the time of year and time of day. (Yesterday where my temp stick is located the temperature varied from 61.6F to 64.1F.) We converted a closet in our TV room to have storage for around 400 bottles at a constant temperature of 55F. Our small compactor size wine fridge in the kitchen is also set for 55F. We have built in storage for 160 bottles in our dining room. It is fed by our central AC when it is operating and the temperature is around 67F for most of the year. Finally, I put most young wines in their shipping cases into an extra bedroom. The temperature varies from 65F to 70F. These I move into the main wine room when I want to slow down their aging. JimH sleeps in this room when he visits.

[JoelD]

Is Petrus the new birth control?

Can we get a "like" button for Blanquito's quips please?

I don't feel as bad, that I am in the middle, largest group of 1-2k, much closer to 2k though. Maybe slightly over if you count all of the cheap Garagiste wine that I just got in. But that usually goes to friends/family that I buy wine for. So I don't count that in CT usually.

I would bet anyone a 1989 Lynch Bages that I can guess at least one of the 4500+ cellars

[Comte Flaneur]

I have two large fridges and one medium sized one, both full, and about 100 wines stored in my bedroom, where the heating has been disabled, but it is mostly cheaper week day stuff. I have wine stored in 16 other locations, including 62 bottles with the MWC in New Jersey. That is mainly high end stuff which I have whittled down from over 100 bottles in the last ten years.

If anyone knows anyone in the US who wants to buy a case of 2004 Ch Belair cheaply let me know. I bought it on the recommendation of Keith Levenberg’s write up, and I have a dozen or so bottles of it over here. He is right it is a very good wine but I cannot see myself ever drinking my US case. Happy to let it go well below market.

[Comte Flaneur]

Come on Blanquito, isn’t that you with the 5000 bottle cellar?

I honestly stopped keeping track about 5 years ago, think I’m around 1400 bottles.

Chris Bublitz

Not I! I’m a little over 2000 these days, and it’s in shrink mode from here to the Great Tasting Room in the Sky.

That’s what I said when I turned 50 Patrick. And now I have 50% more than that day, nearly eight years ago. It’s called Obsessive Compulsive Wine Buying Disorder and gets worse the older you get.

[stefan]

Ian, I wish that all problems that come with age were like OCWBD.

[JimHow]

I'm surprised at the size of the cellars. I have 900 and I thought that was big.

[Claudius2]

Guys
I checked the storage manifest exactly and estimated the bottles in two overloaded wine fridges plus a few cases in wardrobes and the like. The storage units are offsite and climate controlled.

The total is around 2200 if I exclude the 2019 indents and the few 2018 indents yet to arrive. Make that about 2340 if included.

My wine consumption however was arguably halved in the last decade due to various health issues. Now we drink only 3 bottles a week and stick to it except on special occasions or holidays.

When I left Australia I had a storage unit several times larger and at one point had nearly 7,000 bottles, including the racks under the garage. I had collected it for twenty or thirty years and seemed to be too greedy when buying it. So I drank it but for each bottle I bought I’d buy 2-3 to replace it. So most was sold off in Australia over several years after I relocated.

Cheers
Mark

[Antoine]

Yankees are far more reasonable than UK owners... I was merely middle of the pack on UK wine forum Ian's thread...

[OrlandoRobert]

I'm surprised at the size of the cellars. I have 900 and I thought that was big.

Mini-Balla!

[DavidG]

I used to be at ~1500 before retirement and downsizing. About half that now.

[s*d*r]

Most of my stuff is off site. I have two Eurocaves in the house, one holds about 80, the other 120. I ordered a special big shelf for the larger one which has slots to store 24 bottles upright which otherwise is hard to do in wine fridges. So lots of heavy sediment old Bordeaux in the on-deck circle .