Because of my chosen profession, I moved around a lot as a young adult. That profession and the required moves that came at regular intervals made it nearly impossible to start collecting wine. I always had eight to ten bottles on hand that would cover any impromptu occasion that called for wine. Those bottles were mainly from my trips to Portugal, France, and Spain. They were supplemented by a few bottles that I would buy when I actually got to attend a tasting or wine dinner. It wasn’t until my wife and I had the opportunity to settle down in Pensacola that I could finally put some real effort and thought into starting a wine collection. If you decide to undertake your own, you cannot under estimate the effort or the thought that goes into it. In this article I will discuss the idea of a wine collection and briefly touch on the topic of wine as an investment.
In previous City Lifestyle articles, I discussed the essentials for storing your wine, and have often hit on it again since, so if you still have questions on how best to store your wine seek me out and we can talk. In another article we discussed the oenophile trait of Wine-Hunting. If the trill of the hunt for wine is as strong as mine then any bottle of wine can find its place in your collection. It doesn’t matter if that bottle costs $32 or $450, if you loved it then that bottle can be worth its place in your fledgling, or vast, collection. The storing of wine and hunting for wine both require effort and thought, and to start a proper wine collection, the two actions must meet. It will do you no good to start hunting for your prized bottle if you do not have the proper storage.
A proper wine collection is whatever you want it to be, whether that be eight bottles or 800, the effort and thought must be equal. For many it starts with getting a few bottles to have at the home. Storage starts out rudimentary, probably a small wine rack in a dark corner of the kitchen. It changes when you find a wine that you love, so you buy it and bring the bottle home. Then you try another wine and you bring two of them home. Now you need space to store those bottles so that you can enjoy them with friends at a
future date…and that’s how it starts for many of us. That fledging collection, for most, usually culminates in a simple wine fridge. Although for others it is just the beginning. Knowing that you have proper storage allows you to hunt with more resolve. You can seek out “special” wine to have at “special” occasions. If you continue on this trajectory then a simple wine fridge will not be enough. Whatever your budget and desire, the effort that goes into ensuring your wine will have proper storage for future enjoyment must be equal to the thought that goes into each bottle that will live in that storage.
What is a bottle of wine worth? On the monetary side most bottles are worth roughly 20-40% less than what you paid for it. That’s not a typo. That is the average retail mark up for wine in the U.S. yet that only accounts for half of the true value of a bottle of wine. The other half of a bottle of wine’s value is the emotional value. This includes the thought that went into that bottle and its future enjoyment. That $32 bottle that you brought back from Napa after seeking out a winery you read about will be worth every penny when you open it to enjoy with close friends.
A quick word on wine as an investment. Based on auction sales and trust liquidations from 2025, approximately 90% of wine collections sold for less than what the owner put into them. Could your wine collection be in the 10% that would sell for more than you put into it? Maybe… and Good Luck! I will tell you is that the owners of those wine collections that sold for less probably hoped to enjoy some of those wines with family and friends. Yet, they didn’t put enough thought into how that wine was going to be, or meant to be enjoyed. That, in my opinion, is the real value and reason you should start a wine collection: to be enjoyed with those you enjoy being with. Cheers to collecting!