Travel Pete's Journal: Basements, Kids & Mental Health

1000 Bottle Wine Cellar

Could be a reasonable idea, even for budding wine lovers like us.

Okay now, stay with me.

Here's the theory, and I've almost convinced myself (easy) and my pregnant wife (difficult) that this theory holds as much water as...anyway.

1000 Bottle wine cellar. Wow, sounds extravagant and crazy.

First, assume you'll be wanting wine to age up to 10 years or more. Sounds good, given how little I know about wine. Second, assume you have space... In my case, I've got an unused, dark corner of the basement butting up against concrete walls on 3 sides - a perfect, otherwise unusable space, with constant temperature, no light or air movement, little vibration, etc...

So, 1 room, 10 years, 1000 Bottles.

Math: 1000 Bottles = 100 bottles/yr * 10 years

Let's start there.

At 100 bottles per year, that's about 2 bottles per week. Not crazy, given that a bottle is around 5 drinks (comparing to 5% beer or 40% liquor), so 10 drinks a week for two adults, and in the future, watered-down table wine for the EuroYouth with meals I guess.

The cost, assuming $12-$15/bottle, is $1350 a year for liquor. Not bad, really, when you figure that the bottles will be valued at as much as $75-$200/bottle when you are done with them.

Actually, though, there's less than 2 bottles per week.

Let's envision actually having wine worth that much. What could happen?

A. 3 bottles/yr
You are invited to parties. You bring a great bottle of 1994 DuBlaupt Cabernet Sauvignon. You're a hit, you've provided $100 gift of good taste, and it only cost $12.

B. 5 bottles/yr
Your father visits. There's a few extra bottles that week.

C. 5 bottles/yr
You have a dinner party or holiday party. Boom, there's an extra few bottles.

D. 3 bottles/yr
You have a wine tasting. Shish-boom-bah! There's another few bottles.

E. 5 bottles/yr
Suddenly you have the popular wine-drinking house...I mean, neighbors begin to appreciate you as a person.

F. 4 bottles/yr
Oops, now it's cooking time with the good stuff. As you cook better, you use more wine. Known fact. Some of it even goes in the food.

G. 10 bottles/yr
You decide to save a few extraordinary bottles for later.

That's 35% (35 out of your 100 bottles) gone right there!

So, now you barely have more than 5 bottles every month, just 1.25 bottles a week, which is a pretty easy mark to hit for general purpose drinking.

Finally, there's an assumption you have to have the entire 1000 bottles cellar filled the first year - you don't. You can build them up slowly over more than 10 years, so again you have less than 100 bottles available.

And, wah-lah! There you go, 1000 bottle wine cellar makes perfect sense. You get bottles of wine that taste like $20-$200 but only pay $12-15 each.

Happy tasting!

BTW - I'm thinking about this for a Spring project for the house...Whaddya think?

Posted by BilFish at March 11, 2004 09:02 AM