From Suitcase to Cellar

I know a man who, during his student years, kept his wine in a suitcase under his bed. His reasoning was that he didn’t have that many bottles but what he did have was ‘good gear’ and that as long as the temperature and humidity was constant and the bottles lay flat, there was no problem.

I mention this because I suspect many other people are put off ‘collecting’ wine because they think they need a cellar or dedicated room when in reality all you need is an area (or, for the more resolute, a suitcase) with the right temperature, humidity, light, ventilation and stability.

Indeed one of the primary joys of collecting is building a collection, moving from that space under the stairs (or the suitcase) to a converted utility room and then perhaps entrusting your collection to a professional like Octavian Wine Services. But more of that later.

So once you’ve made the decision to collect wine, you should behave like a collector. Don’t overbuy. What’s the point? One of the few things I remember from economics A level is that the exception to the law of diminishing marginal utility – when consumption of a good or service increases, the additional satisfaction derived from each new unit decreases – is collecting, where acquiring additional should increase satisfaction. That was a rather long winded way of saying there is no enjoyment in buying the whole set at once.

One of the other golden rules of collecting is ‘buy what you love’ as opposed to only basing your decision on what will bring you a decent return. That’s called investing and it affects a different set of endorphins. So don’t feel you have to focus on the classics if you’re palate-driven and lean towards the more esoteric regions.

But do try to make friends with a good dealer, who can offer advice and source and also keep an eye out for auctions where rare and mature wines can be bought at prices often lower than retail and where random lots from the estate of recently departed oenophiles can throw up pleasing surprises.

Unlike stamps, coins, art, watches, cars, which can be fully enjoyed at once, drinks are unusual in the sense that to enjoy them is to ‘lose’ them, so to maintain the pleasure, it is probably wise to create (curate?) a mixed portfolio of wines that are drinking now and which have varied drinking windows.

This is where Octavian steps in, helping monitor your wine in real time, allowing you, for example, to know when it’s at peak drinking condition and, as the Americans say, ‘reach out’ to other collectors and investors to build, diversify or even downsize your portfolio.

Those collectors who are more investment-driven will probably not have started out with a ropey Samsonite under the bed. They will talk about their collection in terms of portfolios and like any other commodity will want to monitor their wines in real time.

Octavian offers My Cellar, a software that allows its private clients to manage their portfolio online, chart current market activity and access background information about the producer such as recommended drinking ranges and how their wines were rated by some of the world’s most respected critics.

Would-be sellers have a full dashboard of data that gives them all the information they need – current market value as well as other online listings – if they want to list their wines for sale. Buyers seeking a particular wine or vintage can create a personal watchlist and meanwhile, Octavian will discreetly contact anyone who has that wine held in their inventory.

And like my friend, you can do it all from your bedroom…as it were!

Michael Karam is a journalist, editor and wine writer. He is the author of Wines of Lebanon: The Journey Continues, which recently won the Andre Simon award. He is also a contributor to Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine and The World Atlas of Wine