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A “wino’s” photo album

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Our leaving Qatar and returning to Australia in the middle of 2009 was a bit of a shock.  I was feeling bitter about what had happened, how unfair it was and how it cost us a fortune because of petty politics, both within the bank and within the royal family of Qatar.  We were jobless and homeless and had only enough money to pay the previous year’s taxes and live for about 6 weeks before we would have gone broke.  Prospects were pretty grim, especially given the GFC was rolling downhill quickly at the time!

Fortunately within two weeks, Deanna had her old job back, and my prospects were looking good, with three job offers firming nicely.  Once we found a place to live and both secured jobs, I was starting to put the terrible experience behind us, and really wanted to treat myself to something special, and for me, that would be a most special bottle of wine, which seemed to be a good cause for celebration, especially after coming from a controlling, alcohol-restricted country!

My wine was all stored in a public cellar as I had moved it out of the cellar I built in our house (which we were leasing out at the time).  Therefore, once we purchased a car, I headed over to my cellar and pulled out my oldest and dearest bottle of a 1954 Lindemans Vintage Port.  It was a truly heavenly drink and I had it over several months, relishing every drop.  It came in a beautiful bottle (the label actually) and was a real treasure.  I wish I had a picture to show you, but I threw the bottle out when I was finished as we were living in a small apartment and space was at a premium.  This was a mistake I have regretted ever since.

As much as I missed that bottle, it taught me from then on to save my ‘precious’ wine bottles and to display them.  They provide great memories and for each great bottle of wine, I can remember the time and the people I shared it with and with reasonable clarity (especially difficult since most of these moments involved a lot of wine!).  I call this ‘my photo album for winos’.

In fact, I almost get as much joy out of my empties and my memories as I do walking through my cellar and selecting new bottles to drink.  With the bottles in the cellar comes a great responsibility to (1) drink them at the right time (always a challenge if one takes this seriously), and (2) who to drink this particular bottle with?  I sometimes find ‘friend matching to wine’ even harder than food matching!  Whereas with the empties, I just have fond memories of times gone by and the great friendships we have shared.

Yes, this does take some’ real estate’ to store so many bottles, but as you can see, we have used the tops of cabinets and the tops of bookcase for ‘display’ and for very special events such as Deanna’s 40th birthday party, we have turned the display into ‘art work’.

Wow – what an evening that was all around and probably the very best wine tasting evening I have ever experienced (see line-up in picture above)!  9 courses of food perfectly prepared and matched to the wines I selected.  Most of the wines came from Treasury Wine Estates and we had the perfect party served up at Lindemans, organized by Michelle Tracey, with Damien Harrison, who was our personal sommelier for the evening and contributed from his own collection a bottle of 1957 Lindemans Vintage Port (it was as close as anyone could find to the 1954 Vintage – thank you so much Damien!) and the food prepared by Craig Parkinson, Lindemans Head chef, with Pip Mason also serving us that evening.  But Deanna’s 40th and the wines deserve their own blog entry which will follow soon.  This one is really about why to save your empties and how to turn them into memories.

Look at the character of this old bottle of the 1957 Lindemans Vintage Port from Damien!  Water damage to the label, but the wine was exquisite.

These empty bottles really mean a lot to me and I greatly enjoy them over and over again.  Most are displayed at our place in the Hunter Valley.  I only keep one bottle of each (a separate bottle though for each vintage), except for the two best wines in the world – Chateau D’Yquem and Penfolds Grange.  We drink so little of each that we do keep each and every empty we have created!

It takes a bit of room, but after tossing the 1954 Lindemans Vintage Port bottle, I learned a lesson.  That was a bit like tossing a 1951 Willie Mays rookie baseball card!  I greatly regret it and make sure to keep all the precious great bottles I have drunk since.  And if anyone can find me a bottle of the 1954 Lindemans Vintage Port, it will be greatly appreciated – filled or empty!

Wine Snob versus Wine Enthusiast – which one are you?

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I must admit that I have a true avocation for wine.  I enjoy wine on its own, with food, and to share with friends.  I also enjoy reading about wine and learning more about how it’s made, where it is best made, how to buy and store it, and how to drink it.

Over time, I have developed a deeper appreciation for the exquisite and multi-dimensional nature of wine and it has become an important part of my life, but no more important than my faith, my job, my friends, my passion for reading on a wide variety of topics, and a general zest for life overall.  I have been able to achieve a deeper experience and understanding of the wines I drink, and that has enhanced some of my other experiences.  For example, we are having a chicken and mushroom risotto for dinner tonight.  My wife makes a really good risotto (you can view the chopped-up chicken and mushrooms below)!

With the chicken, Parmesan cheese and mushrooms, I knew I wanted a rich, aged chardonnay to go with it.  I selected my last bottle of the 2003 Saddler’s Creek Reserve Chardonnay. (Look at the beautiful golden color of a perfectly aged white wine!)  I did so because I have had a few bottles previously and felt it would pair beautifully with a chicken and mushroom risotto, and I also knew the bottle should be drunk in the next few years and I did not want to wait too long or it might go off.  Fortunately the wine was perfect and I am drinking some as I write this posting.  We paid $10 per bottle for the wine as Saddler’s was trying to clear older inventory and we bought the last 8 bottles they had.  But it drinks like a $130 bottle of Penfolds Yattarna or a decent Montrachet.  This turned out to be one of the best buys of my life!

As you can tell, I put a bit of thought into buying the wine in the first place and also when to drink it and what food to drink it with. Some people would claim “I take my wine too seriously, so I must be a wine snob”, but I hardly think that is the case.  To me it is a natural passion or avocation as I mentioned, much like others have a passion for working out or art or literature.  Because I have developed a bit of knowledge over the years, it has become much easier to select a good (and good valued) wine to go with an everyday dinner.  And I put more thought into the wines that match up with dinners when we host our “Single’s and Strays” dinner parties, have friends over, or a special birthday or anniversary.  (BTW, all birthdays and anniversaries are special!)  But then, most of those events become special occasions and lifetime memories.  Does that make me a wine snob?  I don’t think so.

I discussed this with some other wine aficionados and we felt that a wine snob had the following characteristics:

Wine Snob

  • They bragged about the excellent wines they had, but never found the opportunity to share the wine with friends or to give a bottle to a friend
  • They want to have you admit to them having a superior knowledge of wine over you – they are as uninterested in sharing their knowledge as they are their wines – they just want to ‘show off’.
  • They talk a great deal about how much they have paid for expensive wines, and seem to only drink expensive wines

Whereas a wine enthusiast, we felt, had the following characteristics:

Wine Enthusiast

  • They are happy to share wine, either by contributing a bottle, or by asking all who share to chip in for a special bottle of wine, or by setting some rules to have each person bring a bottle according to the rules established
  • They listen to others and want to learn and also share their knowledge and are excited to help others develop an appreciation of wine and mature as a wine drinker and possibly collector
  • They get as much and even greater pleasure out of finding a ‘cheap’ but great wine and would rather drink that than an expensive bottle of wine

We have two friends who are studying to become international Masters of Wine (MW).  An international MW costs about $200,000 to buy, taste and compare wines to develop an internationally acclaimed palate and ability to compare and describe wines to others.  (There are only about 475 MWs globally!)  They are also professional wine judges (in addition to their full-time jobs), but in no way are they wine snobs.  They get great excitement over finding a Canberra (ACT, Australia)  Sangiovese for $20 per bottle and a Marsanne for $15 which they have introduced us to.  A wine snob would not even try a wine from Canberra, yet alone a wine under $20.  We have had a 9-hour lunch at their house (he is French, she is Australian – what can I say?) and we bring over wines we really want to share with them and they pick out wines they really want to share and introduce to us.  These wine may be in the $10 – $20 per bottle range or they may be $40 – $60 per bottle, but it does not matter – what matters is sharing our wine, our knowledge and our friendship with each other.

I therefore, prefer to call myself a ‘wine enthusiast’, not a ‘wine snob’.  How about you?

Wyndham Estate Wine and Chocolate Masterclass

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Yesterday, Deanna and I ventured out to partake in one of the many events during the June Hunter Valley Wine and Food Festival.  We visited Wyndham Estate winery just past Branxton, NSW.  As I mentioned in my blog, ‘Wine Tasting Technology Perspective’, I met a ‘friend’ on FaceBook who shared a common interest in wine plus a particular interest in the Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon as he was a rep for Tyrrell’s at the time.  He now works at Wyndham Estate and posted about their Wine & Chocolate matching Masterclass, so we decided to attend.  Another good example of business being conducted via Web 2.0!

The class had 4 wines (all by Wyndham Estate) which were a Bin 333 Pinot Noir, a Shiraz / Grenache blend (the Grenache really came out, especially with the Raspberry-infused chocolate), a Bin 555 Sparkling Shiraz, and a Rutherglen Muscat.  The chocolates where a Raspberry-infused dark chocolate, a Belgian chocolate, and an Orange-infused chocolate.  Not every combination worked well as you might be able to imagine, but some were really a treat!

The Pinot was fine with the Raspberry-infused chocolate and the Grenache from the Shiraz / Grenache blend really picked up the flavors from the Raspberry-infused chocolate even more.  I personally did not like the Sparkling Shiraz with any of the ‘infused’ chocolates as there was just too much chaos going on in my mouth, but several others in the class liked it.  The Muscat with the Orange-infused chocolate worked extremely well together also.

Both Deanna and I were really interested in what may go well with a Chile-infused chocolate and Cameron Davies, our instructor for the day, had the answer – a big, robust Shiraz!  Wyndham Estate has a great Shiraz, called Black Cluster which is made from 40 year old vines.  We had the 2007 (current vintage) and it was a great wine and good value at $60 per bottle.  And the spice and pepper of the Black Cluster really brought out the chili in the chocolate and the chili really brought out the spice in the Shiraz – it was a wonderful and full-on experience.  Deanna blurted out that “it was like having an explosion in my mouth”!  For me, I will remain a bit more refrained and repeat – ‘it was a wonderful and full-on experience’!

A lot of people have learned a bit (and some a lot) about matching food and wine, and it does, in many cases, truly enhance the dining experience in my opinion.  I also like matching wine and cheese and while any good wine will go with any good cheese, there are combinations that really work much better than others.  The same is true for wine and chocolate.

When we have a 3 – 4 course dinner party, we often start with a Sparkling Shiraz on arrival for drinks until we sit down and get into the first course and the first matching wine.  However, I learned yesterday that a Sparkling Shiraz can go well with chocolate and think it would do very nicely as an alternative to a more traditional desert wine to match up with heavy (or mud) chocolate cake or chocolate truffles to finish a meal.  That is one of the lessons I learned yesterday.  Thanks Cameron for the Masterclass!

Malbec – A Secondary Grape

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Shelly Medernach, one of my many favorite cousins, recently gave me the great pleasure to be able to pontificate on my favorite subject – wine.  She asked about the Malbec grape and I was ready to help as much as I could!  While not knowing much about the grape, I was surprised that over time, I had picked up some knowledge which I was glad to share.

Malbec is considered in a group of secondary (according to how much is drunk, not an appreciation for the quality of the grape) red grapes with Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot and Shiraz being the 4 grapes in the primary red grape category. Malbec joins Grenache, Carmenere (mostly from Chile), Barbera, Tempranillo, Cabernet Franc, and a few others in what are known as ‘secondary’ wine grapes. This does not necessarily mean they are secondary in taste, but just wine sales.  Some of these grapes if grown properly and by themselves or in blends can provide some truly outstanding wines and that is true of Malbec as well as the others.

Malbec grows best in Argentinian soil, followed by Chile and then some spots in Europe and Australia. It is such a heavy grape with big tannins that it is usually blended with some other grapes such as Merlot or Cabernet Franc and provides some great blend combinations. I have had a few bottles of 100% Malbec and loved it, but you need to be careful not to drink too much as it is bigger, heavier and has more tannins than most grapes. If you love big robust Shiraz wines you will probably like a bottle of 100% Malbec.

It is almost grainy because there is so much tannin in it. Tannin is what is in tea that makes you suck in your cheeks a bit and provides texture to the wine (or tea). I love big tannin wines if they have been fully integrated to the wine (which takes years) so it must be well aged to smoothen the wine out and take the grainy edge off the wine. However if aged and cellared properly for 5 – 10 – 25 years, tannin is what gives some of the great red wines their structure and complexity.

Therefore, I would not drink a newly bottled Malbec, but would once it has 4 – 5 years or more of age into it. And you may want to try a blend instead of a 100% Malbec.

I think it is a great grape, when selectively used and from the greatest regions, such as Argentina. The grape is also very sensitive to its ‘terrior’ (the influence of the land, soil, weather, and growing conditions around it) similar to Pinot Noir. That is why some Pinot Noir and Melbecs can be truly great from one region and not from another region, and great one year and not the next. Both grapes are very sensitive and are influenced more than Riesling or Semillon which typically are more consistent, at least within region or from year to year.

The Malbec is very fruity, but can taste leathery, a bit smoky and spicy – a bit like black pepper, but these are all flavors in small quantities that give the grape great depth and flavor. If you like a Hunter Valley Shiraz (unfortunately you have probably not have had any if you are reading this from the US), or if you like any robust Shiraz, you will probably like Malbec, or at least a Malbec blend.  Give it a try!

Wine Blogging Technology Perspective

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Sorry guys – it has been almost two months since posting anything.  Both Deanna and I started new jobs and they have taken some effort to get up to speed.  We also moved apartments and were without Internet for about 6 weeks in total at home.  Additionally, the move occurred much more suddenly than we expected,  so became exhausted moving everything in a two week time period – usually we take 4 – 6 weeks to move with some overlap between the old and new place to make it easier to move.  I was really drained and at one point actually went three weeks without drinking wine – so you know how tired and out of it I must have been!

Anyway, I am back now and looking forward to writing a few blogs over the next few weeks.  We have taken a 4-day weekend to our place in the Hunter Valley, but emergency requests from work are cutting into our ‘free’ time a bit, but since I love my new job, it is not that much of a drama.  I plan on writing a few immediate blogs to catch up on the topics I wanted to blog about over the last few months. A list of these was presented in my blog on ‘Why I don’t write for GT (Gourmet Traveler) Wine magazine‘.

I am also using a new blogging interface, so that may take some getting used to.  I will experiment a bit with it, and hopefully will quickly become comfortable with it..  One thing I am excited about is that I have finally installed Instagram on my iPhone and now able to send immediately pictures related to and enhancing the blogging experience.  Say what you will about Social Media, FaceBook, Instagram, and other Web 2.0 social media sites, but I find they whole concept has deepen my relationship experience and ability to share with others.  The positive or negative experience people have is really determined by how you use the apps and if you were a good relationship person to start with or not.

I learned first of my Dad’s massive stroke over a year ago on FaceBook.  I also have developed some really good friends on FaceBook with a common avocation for wine and writing / reading, some of who I have now met personally and become good friends with.  We have exchanged knowledge, ideas, and even bottles of wine.  Plus when we first met in person, it was already a comfortable relationship.  And recently, my Uncle Pete died a few weeks ago, but I felt much more connected and sharing in the grief with relatives in US through our FaceBook cousins group.  All of these things have kept me closer to family, old friends from High School or previous employers, and I have met some great new friends with common passions.  I will keep growing in the use of Web 2.0 and its associated technologies.

Enough about the technology (except to say I will soon be establishing a Twitter account and using that to spread my interest and small knowledge of wine), and now we will get back to the the topic of wine!  Next post coming soon and will be on ‘Malbec – a secondary grape’.

Maturing as a wine drinker and collector

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In my last post entitled “My first wines”, I discussed how and when I started drinking (fake) wine during my university days and real wine during my graduate school days.

For the next 10 or so years (approximately 1978 – 1988), my wine drinking experiences did not evolve much.  I enjoyed decent enough wine, and had a few great wine drinking experiences which showed me how ethereal wine drinking can be.  Unfortunately one was truly wasted on me.  As a favor for a friend, I wrote a pretty complex COBOL program for him after he complained his company’s IT department could not understand and deliver what he needed.  He paid me $400 for the effort, but was so delighted that when I had him over for dinner and celebrated the success back in 1978, he brought over a bottle of 1961 Château Lafite.  I think we drank it while eating beef strogonoff or something of the like.  I just did not have the palate for great wine back then.

I also started to travel more internationally for work and was introduced to more varieties of food and wine.  I remember once getting upgraded to First Class on Singapore Airlines and being served a 1975 Château Brane-Cantenac and really enjoying it.  (The whole experience of First Class on Singapore Airlines in the late 1980s was a great experience!)  I then found and bought two bottles of it while going through the Frankfurt Airport a few months later.

But the 1961 Chateau Lafite and the 1975 Chateau Brane-Cantenac were exceptions to my wine drinking, not the norm.  However, they did provide a taste of how great wine drinking could be and generated more enthusiasm for drinking good wine as a regular activity.

It was really during 1988 – 1990 when living in New Zealand and drinking more wine with meals and out with friends that I really started to enjoy wine more.  New Zealand is know for some great Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs, and has an excellent wine growing industry.  Drinking more wine on a almost daily basis became the norm.

Then when I moved to Australia in 1997 for a long project, I started to collect and drink far better wines (including having a business dinner with 18 bottles of the 1986 Henschke Hill of Grace (for 14 of us!) – but that is a story for another posting!).  I was fortunate to have a few good friends like Michael Axarlis and Rob Tudor who had very good palates and an appreciation for fine Australian wines and they got me headed in the right direction to better understand and appreciate how many different and great Australian wines there were.

They recommended and I started to collect some bottles including the 1992 Penfolds Grange,  1996 Lindeman St George, 1996 Penfolds 707, 1998 Bannockburn Pinot Noir, 1995 Yarra Yering Dry #1, etc., etc.  I started to learn to appreciate some of the differences between different wines from different regions, different vintages of the same wine, and how sinful it is to drink a wine too early or too late in its maturation process.

When I moved permanently to Australia in 2000, I started to collect and sample even more wines and have been loving it ever since.  For a while, I was so hooked on the quality and value of Australian wines that I drank very little of anything else.  However, during the last several years, I have now been appreciating a broader variety of French, Spanish, Italian, and American wines.

Probably the biggest lesson I have learned through 35 years of wine buying and drinking is not to buy too much of a single wine and limit your tastings to a limited set of wines, as exploring the vast variety of great wines is a joy in itself, and no matter how much you really enough a particular wine, there is always a better one to be found.

My first ‘wines’

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I started drinking alcohol while at university during my first year.  I used to drink vodka (because my dad did) gimlets while playing cards, beer while playing softball, bowling and other activities, and wine when we had nothing else.  My first ‘wines’ were not wines at all per se, but homemade concoctions my father and brother used to whip up with sugar and some flavoring.  Therefore, we had an assortment of flavored wines including apple, orange, dandelion, potato (which I think was just vodka under another name!), and others.

My dad and brother made this wine over several years until the cost of sugar rose too high.  I also think they got tired of cleaning up after numerous bottles exploded because they did not really understand the fermenting process!  I would then bring these wines to university to drink as required.  The ‘Shipley Vineyard’ classic was a bottle of the 1971 Orangeato.  My dad had some leftover Orange wine and leftover Potato wine, mixed them together, fortified it with a bottle of 100 proof vodka and bottled up four bottles.  The only remaining bottle in existence, sits in my friend’s wine cellar next to his prized Nepalese Plum wine!

We also used to buy Boone’s Farm wine, a low-level brand within the E & J Gallo Winery (my God, how bad it must have been to be considered the bottom of the Gallo wine tree!).  It came in Apple and Strawberry flavors and cost about $0.93 per 750 ml bottle.

The point of my wine (and other drinking) during university was to get inebriated on alcohol, not to enjoy the flavor of the wine or the experience of wine drinking with friends – we were just getting bombed!  It was not until I entered graduate school at the University of Minnesota that I started to drink real wine.  I am not sure why or how, but I assume some friend introduced me to wine drinking and I felt it a pleasurable things to do with a meal or while studying or being involved in other activities.  Fortunately, there was a wonderful wine store near the University campus called Surdyk’s.  I did not realize and certainly was not in a position to discern what a great wine store Surdyk’s was at the time.

The people were really helpful and friendly, provided great advice on wine, and steered me towards very good valued wines.  This was during the time when Chili was just emerging on the global wine scene and I was able to find some great Chilean reds for $3 – $5 per bottle.  I also was told by one of the staff to buy some of the 1977 Dow Vintage Port and I got two bottles.  I had one bottle several years ago and it was beyond superb.  I am pretty sure I paid only about $12 – $15 per bottle for it then, and it was one of the great buys in my life!  That was just the type of place Surdyk’s is.  That whole experience changed my life and I started to experiment more with wines, pay a bit more and start to enjoy it more.

Therefore, it was visiting and getting help at Surdyk’s that got me on the journey to finer wine drinking.  Last year, my wife and I were visiting Minnesota again to see my parents and I went by Surdyk’s.  It looked and felt the same and I told some of the staff how much I appreciated their help some 35 years ago and what a great store it still is.  They also introduced me during that trip to the 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling for $22 in the US which is an outstanding value.  I have since bought a dozen in Australia (where it was $30 per bottle) and it is a great, great Riesling.

In my next post, I will explain how my ‘fallow’ years as a wine drinker, but how I was introduced to several great wines which provided a true appreciation for how great an experience wine drinking can be, and how I became a real wine enthusiast while living in Australia, one of the great wine countries of the world!

Why I don’t write for GT (Gourmet Traveller) Wine magazine

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Well, simply because they have not asked me!  I would love to, and I expect so would the other 1,000 or so people who blog about wine.  Of course, I do plan on continuing to improve my wine blogging over the next year and hopefully get some amount of following and notoriety, possibly even some acclaim – who knows?  I have been writing a lot (on a variety of topics, not just wine) more recently, and been doing a lot of editing and guest blogging, so hopefully my writing will continue to improve.

The best way to get into GT Wine magazine is to enter and win their annual Wine Writing competition, of which the next round of submissions is in January, 2013 for the 2013 award.  In the meantime, I am planning on writing on the following topics over the next few months:

  • Why I keep empty wine bottles
  • Mistake of buying too much of a single wine
  • Terroir and its influence on various grapes
  • The difference between a wine snob and a wine enthusiast
  • The wine region Alsace
  • Review of matching wine with food and food with wine for special events
  • Specific wine and wine region reviews
  • Different varieties of corkscrews
  • Use of aerators
  • When and how to decant wines
  • Storing wines
  • Best wine magazines, wine blogs and wine writers to read
  • Wine applications
  • Use of iPad as a wine list for restaurants
  • Why James Halliday pisses me off when he writes about the ’27 Le Tache

and a variety of other topics.  I also plan on including more pictures and links to other resources.  I would be adding a number of pictures now, but we are packing to move apartments and most everything is packed for the move.

Hopefully, you will continue to follow and enjoy my wine blog.  Also, if you have any topics you would like to recommend that I write on, please let me know.  While I am not an expert on wine, I have a growing knowledge base, a lot of friends in the industry and love to share ideas and experiences with others who have a similar interest.

Working in the cellar – being prepared

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Most of us probably don’t own or lease our own cellar.  I have built two of them now, only to have changed homes and gotten very little value out of them which was a real shame.  Now we live in an apartment and I use a larger and smaller Vintec wine fridge to store about 150 bottles of wine for close access in my apartment.  However, when we are doing a tasting or I just need to replenish my apartment holdings, or more importantly if I just want to ‘play’ and organize my larger cellar, I sometimes will spend a considerable amount more time there – usually from 1 – 4 hours.  (My wife claims it is my ‘man cave’!)

I rent a larger wine cellar from Wine-Ark which does a very nice job of providing cellar space.  They provide either a managed cellar service (where they inventory and store / retrieve your wine on your behalf) or you can rent a private and dedicated cellar space which is what I do.  It is located about 20 minutes from where I live, so I want to make sure I am both safe and productive while visiting my cellar.  The cellar is consistently cooled to 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit).  This is necessary for storing and aging the wine properly.  Other safety considerations include that I am mostly over in my cellar by myself.  During the business day and on Saturday morning the office is open and I could have access to the guys who man the operation, but mostly when I am over there working in my cellar it is only me in the location, so I take that into consideration.  For example, my old phone service did not provide strength of coverage being in the basement of the Wine-Ark, so I switched and my current coverage does.

While I do not think of organizing wine as a dangerous activity, it is possible I could fall off a stepladder, drop a case of wine on me, or have some other small accident (fortunately I have not had an accident in 4 years!).  More importantly, I want to be comfortable and productive.  I have seen guys enter their cellar in a T-shirt to retrieve a few bottles, and that is OK if you are only in 14 degrees in a T-shirt for a few minutes, but if you plan on spending 30 or more minutes at that temperature, you should prepare to keep your body warmer.  I always wear a long sleeve shirt and a wool sleeveless (to provide more arm movement when moving things around) vest.  However, once in my excitement to get over to the vault, I forgot my vest and it was uncomfortable.  Therefore, I now have a vest always stored in the cellar for such an event.  While it is not like being stuck in the freezing cold for an extended period, it does sap your energy more quickly and can be uncomfortable to the point of nausea if you stay in for too long a time without proper clothing.

I also keep 3 bottles of water (so as not to get dehydrated) and a flashlight in case the lights go out while I am working.  This should never happen as the electricity system needs to be backed-up to ensure constant temperature is provided for the wines, but the lights are motion sensor-ed or time controlled and can go out if you are not careful.

My basic tool kit comprises:

  • preprinted paper to inventory my wine and making adjustments to inventory as I move wine in and out
  • plain paper (for writing notes)
  • Labels to overlay boxes that have text written on them already or as a mailing label is I am going to ship off some wine
  • 2 pens
  • Large tip black marker for writing on and labeling boxes
  • Small tip black marker for writing on labels
  • A wine review guide (to research specific wines as to when to best drink and mark it as such on the carton)
  • Tape gun and extra roll of packing tape (I use 3M as there is no problem keeping it in the cold) to make up boxes as needed to move wine back and forth
  • Roll and dispenser of regular (Scotch 3M) tape for taping paper or labels onto boxes
  • Several one-bottle and two-bottle shipping containers in case I want to package up a bottle or two to ship off to a friend
  • Extra boxes to store or transfer half dozen or dozen bottles as required
  • Flat-head screwdriver to lift off wooden lids from containers (usually more expensive wines are shipped in wooden boxes)
  • Cutting (Exacto) knife to cut open boxes of wine or to cut up empty cardboard boxes for recycling

I started with most of these items, but added a few as I learned the need for them over time.  All of my supplies and tools fit into a single cardboard box which is used to hold a six pack of wine, so it does not take much room at all.  The pens, markers and tape all work fine at 14 degrees, but I check them every now and then to ensure they are still working.  Wine-Ark provides stepladders and trolleys to provide transfer of your wines from the cellar to your car, so I do not need to keep my own of those.

If you plan on working for longer than 4 hours, you should also consider packing a snack, but I just make it a point to get out of the cellar (and warm up a bit) to grab a bite of lunch.

I get great enjoyment out of ‘playing’ in my man-cave and want to make sure it is a comfortable and productive environment.  It all adds to the enjoyment of drinking the wine.