Look for wine merchants interested in what you like rather than what is on special this week. There is real fun in taking home a mixed case from different regions and discovering your palate. Take notes on what you like and why and then, when you go back, your wine merchant will be able to refine the selection to your taste. Nevertheless, be open to new suggestions and try to broaden your experience as much as you can. As you gain experience, your preferences will inevitably focus on certain regions but even then, keep an open mind for there are great wines coming from everywhere around the globe.

So if you can’t possibly “win” this wine game, why play? I tell my wife it’s a good investment, but she’s too sweet to point out I’ve never sold a bottle in twenty years. Drank, traded, donated to charitable causes, given away— yes— but sell? I don’t think so. I know people who collect and play the “ratings game” and take exclusive comfort in the ratings of the critics, sometimes without even trying the wine for themselves. While there are certainly wine critics I respect and heed, that approach is too passive for me. I like to at least try to figure it out for myself. And of course we all know “label lovers” who continue to revere a brand even after the winemaker who made the wine famous has retired and sold the vineyard to a multinational corporation. So while you may find certain labels in my cellar, there is no lifetime pass if the style, quality or value diminishes.

The fact is, my wine collection-and I suspect many others– started as an accident. A classmate of mine ended up at a wine distributor and she gave me a few bottles of truly different and interesting wines to try way back in 1985. I had no idea there was more to wine than what I had been used to drinking. This started a long and serendipitous path of trial and error (lots of errors), study, discussions, and travel. My cellar is more of an ongoing process than a collection. Like most people who consistently buy wine, I have developed my prejudices on regions, grapes and winemakers, but every region has it’s expressions of balance, quality and value. And even though I can afford more expensive wines than I could in 1985, those are the bottles I’ve tried to add over the years. Besides, it’s a good investment.

John von Schlegell

2004 Francis Tannahill Jack White

I’m not even sure where to begin with this wine. It’s one of Oregon’s rarest (only 37 cases were made) and most difficult-to-find wines (who would be crazy enough to try and sell it?) to locate. So I guess I’ll start at the beginning. Several years ago I was at a trade tasting in Chicago. There were hundreds of wines and dozens of winemakers, all jammed into a trendy Chicago restaurant designed to look like the inside of a circus tent. Which was the perfect setting for this wine. At about the time I thought my palate was about to give up the ghost, one of my employees came running over and said, “I may have just died and gone to heaven. You have to go find Sam Tannahill and ask for the Jackass. It’s hidden under the table.” I didn’t know quite how to interpret that statement so I went to see for myself. After all, I’ve seen stranger things than a jackass under a table at a trade tasting, but you never know.

Sam Tannahill is usually a cool, calm and collected fellow (think young Elvis Costello, but without the contemptuousness) but he was clearly nervous about this wine he had hidden under the table. It didn’t have a label and it had the oddest light orange color with flecks of pink. Was it a rose? Was it an Oregon attempt at sherry? Was it a white wine? Sam wasn’t sure himself, but he did say “I’m pretty sure my wife (co-winemaker Cheryl Francis) isn’t happy about this wine. In fact, she calls it the ‘jackass wine’ because that’s what she thinks of me for making it.” (more…)