Opening that bottle of wine from your cellar can be a moment to savour. Not every bottle in a cellar is freighted with deeper meaning. However, every cellar has at least one set aside for an occasion.
In our fast-paced world, the future is measured in financial quarters and calendar years, with some of our most forward-thinking plans being school registration. Our demand for luxury tends to be immediate; why would we wait? Aged wine demands patience, and time is a precious commodity. We cannot simply call a concierge and order up 20 years, if only it were so simple.
We cannot manipulate the time in the cellar and its impact on the wine. It is the product of patience and vision. While we cannot buy time, there is a workaround.
Buying aged wines at auction (where somebody else has done the waiting) is perhaps the best way to “buy time” when it comes to fine wine. However, there is always the first consideration of auction: caveat emptor or buyer beware. While Australian fine wine auction house Langtons is a reliable source for fine wine, the older a wine is the greater the risk.
Indeed, this is all part of the auction game. Find a fine and rare wine, make a bid, cross your fingers, and, if you win, hope it unearths an aged treasure. To take the risk out of opening old bottles, cellarists buy from reliable sources and then hide the wines in the back cellar to avoid temptation.
The waiting game varies from five or more years for a top Australian chardonnay to 20 or more years for a top chateau from Bordeaux. But there is far more to collecting wine than risk mitigation and guaranteed provenance. Fine wine as a store of value is not a novel idea.
Indeed, luxury investment is well established and, if nothing else, allows collectors to talk about their investments without being a bore. Ageworthy, rare wines from blue chip producers tend to hold their value or increase in value over time. If there is a long waitlist for allocations, secondary markets will respond and pay a premium for a share of vintage.
In an Australian context, flagship wines from Rockford, Wendouree, Bass Philip, Giaconda, etc., cause a scramble each year on release, and members look to maximise their allocations. When these are exhausted, the demand shifts to auction where those eager collectors seek to fill holes in their cellar with the latest of the most indemand wines.
Hence, each of these flagship wines are being firmly embedded in the top tier of the Langtons Classification of Australian Wine which bases it ranks on demand. Collectors may liquidate their vinous assets at a profit while, until that time, reserving the right to dip in and enjoy, like owning a vintage car and taking it for the occasional short drive. Wine is beautiful.
The idea of a dark and cool underground tomb for wines may be the first image that comes to mind for a cellar, but the reality is quite different. Offsite secure storage allows the experts, your own cellarmaster, to care for your precious bottles and take receipts of your order. While at home, custom builds for cellaring and displaying wine framed a wine collection as beautiful and dynamic displays.
Over time, as wine is removed and replaced, the piece evolves, always changing yet remaining the same. On special occasions, we often reach for an appropriately fine bottle or two. However, there are some wines intended for a purpose.
Birthyear wines are very popular, particularly with parents who set aside long-clearing wines from the birth year of their children with the intention of opening them at milestone birthdays. So, with anniversaries, the founding of businesses, and other significant life events. Each year at auction, Langtons sees a lift in those wines that mark 40th, 50th and 60th birth years in particular.
South Australian reds, shiraz and cabernet dominate this market. With their near bulletproof ability to age over decades, Penfolds, Wynns, and Yalumba are among the most reliable wines at auction. Some collectors consider their legacy and build their cellars with generations in mind.
These collectors share their passion for fine wine and collecting and develop a cellar together to enjoy over time. A small but surprisingly significant number of collectors buy wines with no intention of drinking. Planting trees, as it were, the fruit of which will be enjoyed by subsequent generations.
On the day of celebration, these aged wines fulfil their purpose. There is a juxtaposition between a wine’s long wait in the cellar, silent and still, and the eventfulness of our own lives in the intervening years. The wine in the glass is like meeting an old friend and then asking, “So, what has happened since we last saw one another?” - Learn more about Langtons Classification event series here .
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