The most common question I am asked when people are looking for wine recommendations is, 'So what's in your wine cellar?' Building and maintaining a cellar depends on the size of your budget, whether you want to age your wines, and anticipating the occasion on which you will share your bottles.
Life’s Big Moments
Champagne is traditionally used for toasting, so I always keep a few bottles of Cremant d’Alsace on hand. Cremant d’Alsace is made just like Champagne but comes from the Alsace regions. Of course, each Champagnes house has its own style and there are over five hundred producers of the famous bubbly. Some of them are simply exceptional and will benefit from aging for a few years. I keep bottles of Roederer and Krug on hand.
Longevity
Keep bottles for special occasions, but make sure they don’t die in the process! I bought bottles from the birth years of my sons with the idea that we would drink them together on their 18th birthdays. I selected two St Julien and Pauillac from the Medoc region of Bordeaux as I knew these wines would evolve nicely over 18 years in my fridge. There is a plethora of wines available to purchase today, and only a small minority have the potential to age beautifully over 15 years if stored properly. I have tasted twenty-year-old vintages recently and it was fantastic
Souvenir
I keep a lot of “souvenir” wines, bottles I bring home from wineries or wine shops I visited while on business trips or vacation. I often say that a good bottle of wine is like a postcard because It will always exude the environment it came from. I usually drink these with my wife as we naturally both share the same memories of the trip.
Any Day
And then we have the “any day” drinking wine selections. In the wine industry, “anyday wines” represent all wines landing under $20. The beauty with this category is that when you get a bottle you don’t like you didn’t break the bank. When it feels like summer I tend to drink my fair share of rose from Provence for its clean, crisp, fresh and acidic profile. Gassier from Provence makes one of the best of France according to a lot of famous critics and experienced rose drinkers like me.
If you are new to wine or want to discover more about it, I strongly suggest making friends with your local wine shop owner because they taste new wines every day and always look for interesting bottles the big box retailers won’t touch. The bottles mentioned in the article can be found at Spin the Bottle wine Shop. 105 W. Boston St in Chandler. Ask for Cristobal Alarcon.
Christophe Convert is a resident of Queen Creek for the past three years and is proud to be a part of this dynamic community and place where opportunity blooms. He has over 20 years of experience in the wine industry and currently works for a French wine group representing its wineries over the West Coast territory. His love for wine began as a young boy working in his grandfather’s vineyard and continues today. He loves to share his knowledge and little known historical facts, legends, and stories about wine.
'Building and maintaining a cellar depends on the size of your budget, whether you want to age your wines, and anticipating the occasion on which you will share your bottles.'