For someone just starting their wine collection, where to begin is one of the biggest questions. Do you go for wines that will impress? Highly rated wines? Wines that others are collecting?
In this great Forbes article Alicia Adamczyk boils is down to the simple truth: Start with wines that mean something to you. She discusses with sommeliers how to build a collection. Gilles de Chambure, John Conniver, and Courtney Humiston say that they can appreciate an extravagant wine collection, but they can all agree that wine and the start of a collection should have history and personal meaning to the collector. Figure out what you like and find significance in the bottles, beyond the year and score.
“Courtney Humiston, the wine director at the Dry Creek Kitchen at Hotel Healdsburg in California, says to ignore scoring and classifications. ‘One of the joys of a wine collection is pulling a special bottle 10 years after you first tasted it and being able to share the story of that first discovery with your friends and loved ones,’ says Humiston. ‘Having a personal connection to the wines in your cellar, to me, is very important. Otherwise, it’s just a cold room full of very expensive fermented grape juice.’”
Check out the rest of the article at Forbes.com
