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It's possible to cellar any kind of wine but if the wine won't improve, what's the point? In short, most red wines have what it takes to age and top-class reds, possibly designated reserve or single vineyard wines, are your best bets. A sprinkling of riesling, some chardonnay, champagne and port should round out the beginner's cellar.
Just to show you how easy it can be to get started, I spent some time scouring the B.C. Liquor store on-line guide for some suitable candidates. Here's a "12 x 6" (72 bottles) to get you started.
From here you can slowly add wines to replace what you're drinking and eventually get your cellar number up to the 300- to 500-bottle level. That, and a little patience, is all you need to enjoy aged wine at home with your friends for a lot less than you would pay to buy an even younger version of the same wine down the road.
Finally, pay attention to vintage and bottle age. The whole idea of maintaining a personal cellar is to give you the opportunity to drink less youthful wine in favour of mature versions.
Personally, I like the eight- to 10-year mark, but even the five- to seven-year window is a good place to be. Some of the wines I'm recommending today are already five or six years old so you can see it doesn't take all that long to build a cache of wine that will exhibit the secondary and tertiary flavour characteristics and improvements in texture and tannin that comes with age.
In 2013 it's still possible to sleuth out a few wines from 2005 or 2006 and, of course, later so you can see it's not as daunting a task to build an older cache of wine as it looks. You can also protect the cache by buying an extra bottle of a younger vintage that's destined to be great. That way you can open a few extra bottles while you wait. Remember — perseverance and patience are the wine collector's friend.
Finally, if waiting is an impossible task for you or your budget, you can always enjoy any of today's picks now, but they will get better with time.
By the way, the entire starter cellar — 72 bottles — comes in at $1,876. After that, it's all just a matter of time.
A CELLAR FULL OF WINE
Colomé 2010 Malbec Gran Altura, Cafayate, Argentina $30
Château Pesquié Côtes-du-Ventoux Quintessence Rouge 2010 Rhone Valley, France $30
Emiliana Coyam 2008 Valle del Colchagua, Chile $30
Pétalos 2008, Bierzo, Castilla-Leon, Spain $29
Drouhin Vaudon Chablis Reserve de Vaudon 2010 Chablis, Burgundy, France $29
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