A while back a friend of mine asked me what I thought would make the ultimate $100 cellar. Fancy wine’s not cheap and there’s so much good stuff to chose from. I thought about variety and balance. You’d need some reds, of course, but also some whites. You’d want to be able to pair with different kinds of food.

After much deliberation, I came up with the following list:

  • Turnbull Estate Grown Cabernet Sauvignon ($34), an amazingly rich, fruit-forward cab that rivals competitors at twice the price
  • Mollydooker Shiraz ‘The Boxer’($20), classic Aussie Shiraz concentrate almost sweet with oak vanilin
  • Rombauer Napa Valley Chardonnay ($27), heroin for Chardonnay addicts
  • Van Volxem Saar Riesling ($17), delicious off-dry lemon and apricot that pairs with almost anything

That got me up to $98. Say what you will, but there’s really no other choice for that last $2: the infamous Two-Buck Chuck itself…

  • Charles Shaw Cabernet ($2), smooth and easy drinker consistent across vintages

Okay, new vintages have been released since I originally priced this list and some have gone up. But still, it was a perfect $100. I’m a genius, right?

Then I thought about it some more…

Why cellar a wine? Why buy something years in advance of when you intend to consume it? Unless you invest in wine only as a commodity, the answer is to age it. The wines I picked were very enjoyable, ones that I’ve personally tried and bought again for myself. They all could age, but they didn’t need to age.

As wine sits in the bottle, it is not in stasis. Chemical reactions are in constant flux. This enzyme consumes these precursors to produce those results. Another compound simultaneously breaks down into a unique set of others. This goes on endlessly, in a thousand different ways all at the same time. Thus the wine’s composition, and therefore its character, change over time.

That’s complicated enough by itself, but here’s where it gets interesting. Every one of these reactions occurs at a rate that is affected by temperature…differently. Store a wine for a year at 76 degrees and you end up with concentrations of A, B, and C. Store it for a year at 66 degrees and you get D, E, and F. Let it cycle between summer and winter room temperatures and you get still another set of results. The wines you can end up with are as infinitely varied as the conditions you might store one in.

Why age a wine at all? A controversial, and therefore good, question. The short answer is, you should only age a wine if it needs it. Young wines can have an edge to the vibrancy they enjoy. You age to mellow, to round those edges and to integrate flavor, acidity, and texture. Ageing can, of course, be over done. While tannins (a flavorless chemical that provides velvety texture and grip) will soften over the years, so will fruit weaken. Your goal is balance, harmony of both flavor and feel.

The caricature of wine meant to be drunk young is one of simplicity (not always true, in my opinion, but that’s a discussion for another day). A wine built for ageing, on the other hand, promises power, complexity and finesse in one package, like a professional football player gliding his way effortlessly through an intricate waltz.

Such a wine may be nigh undrinkable in its youth. In anticipation of how it will fade, the fruit may be over the top. Think Welch’s with alcohol. It may be bitter with acid, stemmy with herbal notes. It’s tannins might pucker you up until your mouth feels like it’s been upholstered in corduroy. Ah, but when the thing ages those flavors and feels melt into synchronicity. It all slides together in a way that just can’t be duplicated right out of the barrel.

Sure, you can just buy vintage wine. But, it’s more expensive that way. The effort and patience to age costs money. Prices rise on a given wine year after year while availability falls. Wine Spectator’s wine auction index has outperformed the stock market’s DOW over the entire span of its keeping.

If you want to experience the best wines at their best, you can most afford to do so by ponying up the cash now and cellaring them yourself for later.

So now I want to change my answer.

What I’d originally done was choose something more like my own ultimate $100 gift basket, not a cellar. Cellaring requires patience. To be the most fun, a cellar should represent a series of prized acquisitions over time. Think of your cellar as a hobby. Give it the care and researched consideration that any collector would, because that’s really what you’re talking about: becoming a collector.

As such, a one-time infusion of cash won’t suffice. You need a budget. Without permission, I re-worked the conditions of my assignment. I gave myself $100 per year to spend and went back to my lists. Understanding that nothing is more personal than taste, here are a few of the candidates that would be on my short list if I had but a Benjamin with which to build.

  • 2004 Turnbull Estate Grown Cabernet (20/20 Wine, $47) - 95pts, Connoisseurs’Guide: “…shows no shortage of youthfully gruff tannin. It is built to get better for a number of years, and it comes with a recommendation for five to eight years of cellaring.”
  • 2005 D’Arenberg Shiraz The Dead Arm (LaBodega Wine, $56) - 95pts, Robert Parker: “Full-bodied, opulent, and super-concentrated, this structured, lengthy wine will benefit from 3-5 years of cellaring and drink well through 2025.”
  • 2004 Concha Y Toro Don Melchor Cabernet (20/20 Wine, $55) - 94pts, Robert Parker: “It makes a youthful entry on the palate with layers of black fruits, mouth-filling flavors, a plush texture, with plenty of ripe tannins to hold this big wine together. The finish is long and pure. The wine demands 8-10 years to show to full advantage and should drink well through 2032.”
  • 2005 Plumpjack Estate Cabernet (20/20 Wine, $85) - 92pts, Robert Parker: “…full-bodied, chewy effort displaying copious aromas of lead pencil shavings, black currants, blueberries, licorice, charcoal, and spice box along with a hint of new oak. This beauty should unfold gracefully over the next 5-7 years, and last for two decades or more.“
  • 2005 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf du Pape La Crau (B-21 Wine, $65) - 95pts, Robert Parker: “…full-bodied, powerful, concentrated wine reveals fabulous purity as well as a finish that lasts over 45 seconds. Purchasers of this beauty will need patience. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2025.”

Refrigerated wine cabinets for every size and space can be found here at Wine Enthusiast. Or, if you’re a big shot, get a custom walk-in cellar. Alternately, check out International Wine Accessories’ selection.

Obviously you can’t get all the wines shown here for just one year’s budget of $100. Choices must be made, priorities determined, and some things put off until next year. That, my friends, is your exquisite dilemma.

Enjoy!

-inspector vino