Adding Wine: We endorse our Jigsaw Puzzle Approach!

During the recent reunion I hosted I was asked many wide-ranging wine questions. The one occurring most often was ‘How do you go about deciding which wines to buy for your cellar?’

As I thought about this question, I quickly realized my answer has evolved significantly from when I first began seriously collecting Napa wines.

At first I had a target in mind (Napa reds), but tended to use a shotgun approach as I reasearhed wines, while trying to hit our bullseye. Not the most scientific of methods, but I’m thankful for that approach at that time since it helped us get our initial holdings built up and introduced us to a wide variety of Napa reds. That said, I realized fairly quickly I was beginning to take into account a number of specific factors as I was deciding.

So here is how I answered this question.

First Up: Varietal aka Buy What You Enjoy

First I explained I immediately raise two questions. Varietal and desire. In other words, what varietals are my favorites and what do our family and friends enjoy most? Quite quickly my favorites became evident to me. Second, I realized I needed to be sure to hold some other varietals, those most enjoyed by family and friends. So we set our sights on continuing our majority of additions for Napa Valley Petit Verdots, Cabernets, and red blends. These are then followed by additional red varietals. Oh, and of course always keeping a ready supply of bubbles for all occasions.

So to sum up decision #1 – buy what you enjoy with an eye towards affordability.

Next Decision: Not so Easy…

I struggled when asking myself ‘what do we value next highest in our wine decision hierarchy?’ What is it I ask myself next as we try and decide what to add? Is there a hierarchy to them? Is it the specific AVA or sub-appellation? Do I favor Estate wines? What about the many non-estate wineries? Do I value the difference the winemaker makes? Does ownership matter such as family vs. large corporate ownership? The matter of consistency/legacy of ownership crops up often in my mind as well, but does it matter?

I tried ranking these, but after several attempts at listing them I quickly realized each time I wrote the list I kept changing their order. Then I had a thought. Actually I look at them all as parts of a jigsaw puzzle. If I can put the puzzle together the wine usually ends up in our cellar. If there are significant pieces missing to the puzzle then we pass.

So I take all of the above into consideration, with the importance of each often shifting when it comes to their weight.

So let me briefly address our most important puzzle pieces:

Ownership: With only three exceptions we focus on buying wines from small, family owned, wineries. As we do with most purchasing in our lives we strive to support small businesses and wine is perhaps #1 when it comes to this. Nothing against big, but as with many products and services, bigger doesn’t always mean better. We buy regularly from only three wineries in the top 50, based on size. Charles Krug, J. C. Boisset Collection, and Concha y Toro. From there on the other 273 wineries represented in our cellar are small, boutique wineries. We know there are many very fine wines from the large companies, but as I’ve said before ‘if the liquor store can keep it in their inventory there’s no reason for it to take up room in our cellar.’

We also highly value robust communications with the wineries we buy from. There is little better than asking a question and getting an answer directly from a family member or the owner themselves. They know their grapes, vintages, vineyards, and vines the best!

The ownership piece is closely related to the next piece, Consistency/Legacy.

Consistency/Legacy: The issue of ownership consistency of a winery is huge to us. If there is an ownership change, especially one outside the legacy line of the winery, we often take a break from buying from that winery to let the dust settle, see what they change, and how they alter their approach to their wines. I cannot say how many press releases I have read when announcing an ownership change saying ‘nothing will change’, but quite quickly a whole lot often does!

AVA/Location: Certainly AVA makes a difference and we definitely have developed a fondness for mountain fruit for many of our wines. That said, one of my very favorite wines right now are Cabs coming from the Rutherford Dust! We never discount a potential purchase based on the AVA alone, nor do we blindly buy whatever we see coming out of a particular AVA or sub-appellation. That said we often pay extra attention to wineries in some of our favorites. This piece of the puzzle is important, but it isn’t quite a ‘corner piece’ if you will.

Estate vs. Non-Estate: This piece is becoming more and more of a big deal for us. We always ask if the winery actually owns the vineyards they use or not. Yes, this matters to us. Along with enjoying supporting small wineries we also want to be loyal customers of those wineries as well. We want to be confident in coming back year after year or becoming members of their wine club there is a better opportunity for consistency. If they are non-estate wineries the grapes getting bottled can fluctuate far greater than if they are producing from the same estate vineyards they tend vintage in, vintage out.

Winemaker: Again, this is one that has changed over time for us. In our early years, I gave who the winemaker was little, if any notice. Then the more I drank the more I realized some winemakers have what we consider a bit more of a magic touch than others. All are good I’m sure, it’s just that certain winemakers seemingly blend for our palettes more than others. A few who hit our bullseye right now are Heidi Barrett, T. R. Brown, Julian Gonzalez, Ralph Hertelendy, Martha McClellan, Philippe Melka, Philipp Titus, and Celia Welch. Many others are making incredible wines, it is just that these are currently tops on our radar. Sadly a couple of our other favorite winemakers have stopped making wines so they’ve entered our Hall of Fame and our stash of their wines are jealously guarded.

Oh my goodness, I realize I forgot a piece! The most important one! The winery/vineyard dogs! After all when you make friends with the winery dog(s) your relationship is forever cemented in the very best of ways! That’s why I always travel to Napa with a pocketful of homemade doggie treats from Thomas Keller‘s Bouchon Bakery!

Cheers!