Building a Cellar - Barrel to Bottle Collects Some Tips on Wine and Spirits Aging

All right, you guys know me. I don't just collect things, I collect collections of things. You know what I mean? And that's pretty gross, actually. Like, books. I don't think so, because I came into your office and we geeked out so hard on- Several things. Various things that was pretty awesome. Indeed, it's fine. But so, yeah, guilty, guilty of collecting things. But one thing I've never been able to collect is wines or spirits or even beers. For some reason, well, obviously, I consume them. I was going to say, I can't either for that very reason. They are consumable. Inventile urge to just consume. The thought of having a fancy wine cellar, I get it, in a, I don't know, Thomas Jefferson sort of way, some kind of- Like this heritage generational like, I've inherited lifetimes of somebody else's deal. Hundreds of years of Madeira. Right, or like, as a foundation of an estate. Yeah. But I don't know, I don't get it. I like collecting stuff too, and I've had wine, I have wine now, I just drink it. Drink it. I look at it for a year, I'm like, close enough. But people come to you, they come to you and they say, I got a cellar, I want to get started. Yeah. It's like, I have a cellar, I need to fill it. Or it's, I just bought a wine fridge and I need to fill it. And so it's a range of like, I can fit 12 bottles or 1200. All right. And it's like, okay, so where do we take it from here? So you're going to convince me why this is something I should start to collect, or I'm going to convince you to stop wasting your money and just drink it. Yeah, either way, I think you're going back to Binny's. We got you. You're coming back. You're listening to Barrel to Bottle The Binny's Podcast, up in your feed about collecting things. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Rob, I'm from the Whiskey Hotline. I'm Gabriel, I am the wine manager of Lincolnwood Binny's. I'm Lexi, I'm on social media. Lexi is on social media, everybody. Oh yeah. I'm on social media. You'll never find me, but I'm out there. I'm around. Rob, do people call the hotline and ask how to get started in collecting whiskies too? Every once in a while, but mostly it's to contribute to a collectible whisky that is very rare. I understand. Okay. Rob, how often do you get a phone call of somebody that dug up like a bottle of Jameson that was hidden in the floorboards of a house they just purchased wondering, is this worth anything? That would be preferable. No, it'd be real cool if I did, but no, it's usually, how do I get the Peppies? The Peppies, Van Winkle's? Can I ask, what is the point of collecting these whiskeys and then just letting them sit on a shelf forever? What's the, why do we do that? Nice answer or? Well, just cut into the quick of everything. Why does anybody collect anything? A consumable. A consumable, right? It's the same with anything. It's to show off your collection. More often than not, it's to show off your collection or to get passionate about something and showcase that passion. But like Gayle is saying, unlike my grandma's plates. Yeah, but whether it's a consumable or not, because there's intrinsic value in something that you've found value and the people that you are surrounded with have that value, you can lord over that thing and then eventually maybe taste the thing, but I guess there's a Venn diagram of people who collect things and then people who actually want to be social. Sometimes it's like, my Binny baby is on my friends, what do I need you for? Well, but to speak to social media, right? Like without social media, this would not be as much of a thing because it's posting your collection. We all want to feel special. And there's various things that make us feel special. And some of those things don't make sense to others. I'm not a big collector of anything, especially a consumable item. I have whiskey at home, but I don't necessarily drink a lot of it. So when I go to a social function, I use those bottles that I've accrued over time to share with others because I like seeing other people happy and excited about a thing. And if they like it, I leave it. And then now that's their bottle. It's kind of a way of gifting a consumable. I'm hearing two things. One, that's kind of how I operate with my home bar. And two, more people need to be invited to the parties that you're going to. So, we'll get a really cool bottle if they talk about it. They're pretty fun parties. So, I was going to touch on that too. Social media, the internet, connects people with weird interests in a way that everybody around you might react, like in your personal life, would be like, well, this is stupid and you're wasting your money. But you find the guy with the niche interest out there and they're like, oh, neat. Yeah. Well, it's like when we were, so growing up, collecting baseball cards, you just had all these baseball cards and you had these binders. But then over time, they just collect dust in your mother's attic or whatever. Now it's such a big thing that it's come back. This same generation, older generation, but this same generation is now all of these cards have retained or amassed new value. So there's this trading and all of these things occurring that boggle my mind because it's very niche to me. But on the Internet, people are going nuts over these things. Well, part of it is the, I've seen these videos of people that are just buying whatever booster packs of collectible cards and their entire shtick is just to open them and let's see what I got. Unboxing episodes. I can't understand that for the life of me. I should start a Binny's series maybe on socials where we do an unboxing. I just open wine. It's called stocking every Wednesday. I never try it. I just. Hey, it's open. Look at this amazing vintage Bordeaux. This will never get open. The nails on the thing. We're not doing ASMR. Come on. Gabe, I noticed you have some wine bottles. I have some wine bottles. Some of these are doing exactly what they're supposed to do. The idea of cellaring wine is to, like Rob was saying, a massive collection. It's a flex. It's a hobby, but it's also consumable. It's the idea of obtaining, storing, waiting for this optimal peak when structures, your tannin, your fruit, and your acidity all level off. Then I have a bunch of my favorite wine at its absolute prime to start drinking or gifting or whatever I'm going to do. I think much like other collections, it just goes off the rails until you have a wing of your house devoted to this. Yeah. Is wine collecting rooted in the fact that like 30 years ago, nobody knew how to make wine and you had to age it in order to be able to drink it because it was kind of gross to start with? Yeah. They just figured out how to make wine. Yeah. A good portion, the early days of Bordeaux was you'd be able to request a first growth and you could either have it pure or you could have a cut. What they were doing was cutting it with Syrah from the Northern Rhone. Chateau Palmer actually released a historical series, maybe every few years, maybe it's not every year, but every few years where they still do that. They won't tell you where they're getting the Syrah from, but they do blend their wine with Syrah and release it as kind of this homage to the day of when wine was tough and you had to doll it up with a little Syrah. That's pretty awesome though, because Syrah is phenomenal. But also Syrah from the Northern Rhone isn't like the most generous wine out there in the world. It's not like Shiraz where you're like, I don't know, but it worked for them then. There's got to be an analogy here. That's like cutting your hair, no. No, nope, nope from the get. Cutting your cask strength bourbon with some maple syrup. It's like cutting your cask strength bourbon with some bottled and bond bourbon. What? Close enough. Giving me the hairy eyeball on that one. OK. So the wine I brought is something, a white wine, that does not leave the winery until it's been sitting there for at least three years in a bottle. They like to do some of the cellaring for you, but it has all the elements to keep going. It's a 2017. Is 2017 the current release? 2018 actually is. Oh, wow. Last I checked. It might be 19 now, but- Just for someone eight years from now. It's 2025. Yeah. That now, so that wine is already like, like math, seven, eight years old. Yeah. It was probably bottled in 2018. But it's a Pinot Gris. It is a Pinot Gris from Alsace. Wacky. I know, right? Wonderful producer. Yeah. Trimbach. I was waiting for you to include it. So that's one. Some of the work's been done. Some of the work can keep going in this bottle. This is a fine bottle to keep selling, allegedly, and we'll find out why. The next one I have is probably in the category of most consistent wines to mature. If you come to Binny's and ask for a wine that's going to last 20 years or when your kid turns 21 or something like that, more often than not, we're going to lead you to a handful of options. But Bordeaux is tried and true consistently. If you need to get 20 years out of a bottle, most Bordeaux is going to get you there. When somebody says, my kid was born last year and I'm looking for a vintage bottle of their birth year, do you go on Bordeaux? Yeah, every time. Sometimes Brunello, like you want to play to their tastes, you also bring up the conversation of like, who's drinking this? Or if you're a good Englishman, your grandfather bought you a pipe of port when you were born, but that doesn't carry over anymore. A pipe of port is like 500 liters. It's wicked. It's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. That was like tradition that like your grandson was born, like he gets a pipe of port. Where do you keep it? I don't know. That's where you see like a lot of people on the floral, they'll say, hey, can I have this vintage of a thing? That's definitely in an age over time. That's where it would be like a vintage port, because it's in a peak around that time as well. Yeah, but if your kid was born in 2024, you're going to be waiting a while for 2024 port to come around. Also, vintage port is declared. So they all have to get together and say, hey, it was a wicked year, let's call it. Whereas Bordeaux is going to release every year, basically. Yeah, you're right. It's iffy if there's even a vintage port that year. Similar to champagne, right? Yeah. Oh yeah, that's always a great one. I was like, I want a champagne for my kid. Like, no, you're going to be waiting. Yeah, it wasn't a good one this year. Just don't. Find a different milestone to celebrate. Conception's fine, whatever it is. And sometimes, oh, the best one is when people come in around 50 years or 60 years, like, my dad's turning 60, I need a bottle from his birth year. He's like, you sure? Is that what you want for your dad? Is this dust? That's what you want to give him? Well, that's where you come over to Armagnac. Armagnac, yeah. Your money will never go further. Even a case, well, I mean, it's equally as spotty, but like rum, to catch a vintage rum. Yeah, it's harder, but yeah. Yeah, but those are things where you get your money back. Yeah, from a value perspective. Some wine, Bordeaux in particular, like Chateau Latorre is almost anecdotally a 50-year wine. It is going to quite literally hit its strides between 40 and 50 years. It's insane to wait that long, but a lot of the stuff like 20, 25 years. At this point, I was born in 1990. I stopped chasing birth year bottles a couple of years ago. It doesn't matter anymore. I'm looking for celebrating my 10th birthday again. I don't like where they're at anymore. Second wine is a Bordeaux from 2010. So again, 15 years right now, and that brings us to our third wine. Third wine is a Pouillac from 2013. A little bit younger than the first one, but 13 was rough. Not a good vintage, not a strong vintage, but this stuff was kicking around the house, so we're going to see if it's still alive. This is from the personal cellar? Yeah, of my wife. She wasn't going to drink it. Yeah, she's not going to miss it. But this very well could be dead in the bottle right now. But this is a great argument to not everything is meant to go the distance in the cellar. This should have maybe been drunk a decade ago. I should have been drunk a decade ago. I bet it's great. Stay tuned to find out. I'm already kicking myself. Why did I bring it to share with you guys? All right, let's do it. All right, let's pass this first one, we'll talk about it, and then get into the why. Why? Well, that's where it's interesting too, like speaking about vintage, like it could be a bad vintage overall, but if you've tasted something and you know that that producer produced an exceptional wine, that's where it's really nice that you can just Yeah, oh, pedigree is everything. Again, going back to something like Chateau Latorre, they're also based in Puyak. Good, bad, or ugly, they're going to mature gracefully. There's other Puyak producers that will not, that might kind of start fizzling off sooner, especially in those challenging years. You mentioned the different kinds of customers who will come in with different sort of requests. So I've got a seller I want to get started. Don't you think, and maybe you can speak to this better, but getting to that person's goal or getting them started, is there a goal that you suggest, like diversity and variety for hosting or a particular streak of something specific that they're looking for? Do people come in and say, I only want Italian wine, don't suggest anything else? So you can deal with all of this. Absolutely. Yeah, it's all above. The old wine text used to come out, used to have a chapter devoted to building a seller, and it would tell you you need to have X amount of this, and X amount of that, and X amount of this, to build what would reminisce of a grand seller or some sort. Why? If you only like Italian wine, why do I try to sell you French wine? You don't want this. Maybe I could transition to you, but if it's something that you're looking at, quote unquote as investment, like I want to mature this and age this and drink this down the line, you're going to be waiting 20 years on a disappointment. That's called parenthood. Also, I don't want my garden to look like Versailles. I can make my own choices. I don't have to base it off of some kind of European regency in order to have a collection of my own defining characteristic. But then I'm countercultural, obviously. I'm low key trying to find an opportunity to do a plug for Downton Abbey, that's all. So Trimbach Pinot Gris, now this one, you say they do the, they seller it at the winery before they even release it, so it's good to go. Three years minimum, yeah. And let's think, if somebody comes in with the idea of building a seller, I will always push them towards having white wine. I will tell them to take note of this white wine and don't let it sit around for 20 years. White wine will not hold as well. Saw turns, fortified, something in that neighborhood might, reasoning very well could, your grand scheme of white wine is not going to be excellent at 20 years. But 10, 15 years could be really fun, 12 years, 8 years, something like that. This is an interesting white wine. I don't have a lot of Grigio in my life these days, but this is an Alsatian Pinot Gris from Alsace in France. This is crispy and it's lemon tinted, like lemon peel bitterness on the finish. There's not a lot of fruit, like broader fruit, but there is some heft underneath. What's going on there? They're retaining some of these, that acidity and that lift through using stainless steel. Then they're also trying to soften that a bit by using concrete as a vessel. They split the way they're doing them. I didn't get into the quality of vintages on some of these, but I think some of that weight is just coming from sheer maturity and just letting that sit and that acidity temper a bit, and letting some of those flavors come together, and then letting That's one of the things that happens over time with wine. Yeah. That's the ratio you're trying to dial in. Is your fruit matching your acidity or vice versa? For white wine is typically the white wines that are aging the best have the highest acidity. You're waiting for that acidity to calm down enough so that fruit is playing an equal role there. It's kind of equalizing. Do you think that the fact that this was aged at the winery shows more aging potential too? I think the idea for them is to showcase what it does with a little bit of that maturity. You can go a little bit further, but they want you to drink it now. I'm curious what this is like straight out the gate. I mean, it could just be screaming at you, you know, upon the time they're bottling it. Camus under a Wagner family label did a Grenache Blanc in 2011. That was so high-pitched and so high-toned and acidity that they never broadly released it, but they kept it at the winery. So, it was there a couple of years ago. I'm like, I see this like knocking around their little shop there. I'm just like, what's that about? Like, oh, let's open that up. And it was still so vibrant after 20 some years in the bottle. Like, Grenache Gris out of California has no business being this energetic, and it was stunning. Two out of three bottles, amazing. Third one was brown. Third one went brown and musty and hazy and like, well, it's just how the way it went. It's gone, yeah. Okay. So we're trying a white, whites for the seller. What other whites seller effectively? Again, looking at things that are inherently either high in acidity or naturally retain a lot of residual sugar, reasoning on either side of the spectrum is perfect. Bone dry reasoning, trochan reasoning will mature gracefully because of that high acidity. You could be looking at 10 years, no problem. If you have something in the Auschlese category, even Spatlese, something with some residual sugar, 20 years could be great. Binny's counterpart of mine pulled out a 15, maybe 20-year-old Auschlese that retails for about $14 on the shelf. I'm like, what are you doing with that? He's like, oh, it was a closeout. Like, what are you doing with that still? It was phenomenal. It would still maintain. I mean, it got savory. It definitely got very tertiary. It got very raisinated and very concentrated in that sense, but it was holding on just fine. We sometimes get library releases from German producers, and it always shocks me that it's like 20-year-old bottle and it comes in and it's like 25 bucks. Yeah. It's like take advantage of that opportunity. I'm not worried about that. Oh yeah, the acid retained so well. What about like Chenin Blanc? I was about to say, Chenin Blanc is on that list as well. Sauvignon Blanc when matured in casks, so some of your white Bordeaux, some of your heavy duty like Napa Sauvignon Blancs can do really well. Chardonnay through and through does very well, although I think, again, we're talking about this relative context of like how long should it go before it really starts getting like falling off. White Rhone's can potentially age as well, but I've definitely had 25 year old white Rhone where it's just like, woof, there is nothing left here, nothing. But damn it, if it wasn't trying, it was trying to hold on. Chardonnay gets darkens to brown as it ages and red wines lighten to brown as they age. There's a gravitational force at brown that all wines wants to go toward. Universal. So something else about cellaring your bottles is, how do you know when to pull it? How do you know when it's time? You don't really, right? Not entirely. Luckily, we have the Internet and fun websites like Cellar Tracker where or even periodicals that review wine will occasionally go back and re-review. Call it social media weirdos. A couple of years ago, Monica Larner re-reviewed the 1981 Beyond Decenti, Reserved Multiple Channel de Brunello, and said this will go for another 50 years. I was like, really? Wow. Another? It doesn't. No. This is ridiculous. Well, what publication is the one that has the chart? Is it wine enthusiast or wine spectator that has the Bordeaux chart? Most of them have some variation. And they'll say like drink through whenever or good to go or hold, et cetera. And I think they updated pretty like every year for their vintages. You gotta keep one of those folded up in your sport coat pocket. Oh, you better believe it. Except no tie. Whip it out in restaurants. I just remember some cats that would do that too. It's just like, nothing's that old on the shelf. Put that thing away. It's laminated. You're holding it day to day. You're putting this thing in your pocket like a habit. You have to put a magnifying glass to it. You can make a little book and put it in your wallet. Exactly. Next to the picture of my kids, that's where that's going to go. You can check the internet. See who opened a bottle recently because other clubs and other enthusiasts, people have the same stuff and they're trying it and taking their gambles and seeing where it's at and reviewing it because everyone wants to be heard. Again, going back to this idea of pedigree, just kind of knowing that like, okay, this from this vintage, based off of vintage charts that I read, whatever, 10 years ago, this is where it should be hitting these peaks. Kind of looking at the wine too, like if you look at the bottle in the light and start saying, okay, the fill is starting to get low, the color is a little off, I'm seeing sediment forming here and there, maybe it's time to pull that cork and give it a try. When in doubt, just open it. That's the only way you're going to know. So a couple of quick points. So for just like basics of cellaring, like temperature, like light, and then also as these get older, tools used. So rather than like a traditional wine key, using an asso or something like that. Yeah, or the Durant, which Binny's may or may not still carry, which it has a- We should have some. Yeah, it's a classic worm from like a waiter's corkscrew with an asso, that two prong opener kind of over it, and they work in tandem. So you have the worm going into the bottle and then the prongs going on either side and they work together to pull out a cork. It's amazing. Oh, I love them. I absolutely wanted one and they're $200 and I'm like, fine. Yeah. Yeah, the 200 bucks, but they're- They're amazing. They're amazing. And you feel real special when you're opening it because you've used engineering to open, manipulate this thing so that it doesn't fall apart. Yeah. There's a couple of the social media feeds that I follow that open old bottles of wine and it is so satisfying just watching. And then the old traditional way of taking a look with like the candle to see where the sediment is falling at the shoulder, oh. Yeah. That's the Durand, really excited. I love it. Sounds like we should make this into a social post some point down the road here. So from a seller temperature perspective, 55 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit, around there? Yeah, sub 60, but above 50 is ideal. Colder than that, like don't try and leave your wine in the refrigerator for more than a year or two. It's just gonna start drying out that cork. Refrigerators don't have humidity. You wanna have, if nothing else, consistent temperature. Even if you're floating towards 65, as long as it's consistent, if you're looking for maturing past, say, five years or so, you do not wanna see big fluctuations, because that's gonna start those highs and lows that's 75 to 65 to somewhere between, that's gonna end up affecting your wine. You also wanna stay away from direct heat or light. So keep it away from the furnace, keep it away from sunlight. That's why basements, cellars, ambient walls, the best place to store wine in my house is in a closet that shares a wall with my garage. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, there's a closet underneath the staircase that I don't have a cellar, so I can just throw bottles on a rack and it stays a cool temperature because it's the coldest in the basement. It's perfect. Yeah. And then lack of vibration, like you don't want anything on the top of your refrigerator or anything like that. Yeah, that's a great one to bring up as well that I don't even think about very often, but yeah, if it is somewhere that's going to be shaking or rumbling or something like that, that can also start stirring things. That again, I think you were getting into this, when these things become fragile and that's in this whatever 15, 20 year state where these things, you look at them funny, and all of a sudden they're flawed. We've all seen the above the fridge wine rack, which you're right, it's vibrate-y. And then heat, heat comes off the back of the fridge. And it's high, yeah. And then when you're cooking, it's like, you just look at those bottles and it's like caked on, like oil that have cooked over time. Don't keep wine in the kitchen, just in general. It doesn't have to be in there. Find somewhere cooler to put it. Unless you're drinking it. Yeah, exactly. Once it's open, by all means. Well, I mean, you open six bottles to start. A week or two in the kitchen. The refrigerators, I mean, invest in them if you want to. Some people, if they have the room, if they want to pay the bill, if they want to deal with having another appliance in their house, buy the refrigerators. They are proven, they work. But again, if you don't think you're going to be keeping things for longer than a handful of years, just find an easy spot that's tucked away and utilize that. Can I tell you my wine fridge experience? I was a wine consultant and we lived in apartments. We appreciated your services. Yeah, thank you. For like 18 months. Two holiday seasons, so it's two years. We moved from apartment to apartment and we didn't have like control over the temperature in the way that you would want. So we got a wine fridge, then we bought a house with the wine fridge in the basement. It was just kind of annoying how it would make sounds. So we ended up with a wine fridge in our basement full of wine, not full of wine, like 10 or 12 bottles, unplugged. So we got a big bulky wine rack with a door. It's a display piece. Yeah. I got a wide fridge for free when I bought my house recently, and same thing, it sits next to one that is plugged in, but unplugged. It's like, it's an insulated box that remains at the temperature of its ambient surroundings, but fluctuates even less than its ambient surroundings. It's great. Do you also get itchy when you open it? Yeah. I want to get rid of it. You want one? No, God no. Does it work? Yeah, it does. I feel like that's up there with pool tables. That just lives in the house now. You're not trying to move that thing. Yeah, it's mostly like a place for socks. Just drying your clothes. Yeah, that's fair. This is my sock fridge. Ew. I mean, on top, whatever. For individuals like us that enjoy consuming this stuff, there is the secret weapon of offsite storage. There's facilities in and around Chicago, probably in the suburbs as well. There's some right by here. Yeah, in like Niles, right? Yeah. I leave wine at my mother-in-law's house. Their basement is cold. You have to trust your mother-in-law. I sure do. They don't drink. Out of sight, out of mind is perfect because I will just stumble in like bottle D and be like, what are we opening now? What's happening? Or definitely having friends be like, you go down there, grab something, grab something. That is one of the best feelings. After the first bottle, and then you just go at it and just pick anything. Now it's whatever, what's next, doesn't matter. Special occasion, who cares? Yeah. Offsite storage is great if you can afford it, doesn't matter if you can find it. Steady controlled spaces are ideal. Temperature is good. Humidity is not always necessary, but do have something in that space that does reach humidity, especially if you want long term. You don't want corks going bad. You don't want the musty basement that's going to be too humid. Exactly. That's where mold and various things start to occur. Yeah. Little known fact, most Binny's sellers are not humidity controlled, but they maintain steady humidity. We do monitor it at all times. We will throw humidity in there if we need to. Same thing, you should be doing the same thing in your home whether or not you have wine or not. Special tools, don't use your damn electric whatever corkscrew thing. That's just going to shred an old cork. It's going to shred a young cork. It's useless. Get rid of that thing. Rabbit ears aren't great. Rabbit ears aren't great. Anything that's going to rip that cork out of there. Just like a wine key or a waiter's corkscrew. Or also, especially if you get into older bottles, decanter. Have a decent decanter. Have a strainer. You might get some sediment when you're pouring these old bottles. You want something to pour it through. Remember, old wine doesn't need a hard decanter. It needs a soft. You're getting it off sediment. You want to gently pour into that decanter versus young wine that you do want oxygen exposed to. Then you're dumping it into a decanter. Dumping it in there, splash it around. And a good point to the decanter, you don't need the fanciest thing. Anything is a decanter. The flatter the bottom, the better. Okay, the flatter the bottom. I have a friend who has very nice wine, has a good collection, Erlenmeyer Flask. It is super thick, has a flat base, and you can get various sizes, and it's super easy to clean. It's the best thing ever. Anything that's got too many angles or that really big wide base that tapers entirely, you're going to be entirely vertical without getting to the last drop. No. That is right next to the wine fridge, and we haven't used it. Yeah, that's just a vase at this point. Right. So it's about surface area. That's why it's broad at the base, for more oxygen exposure. But the other thing that that has, or a good decanter will have, is a crisp edge, so that it doesn't have too much of a pouring coffee out of a mug, just sideways, and it drips down the whole side of the mug. Yeah. But that's it. You don't need anything more fancy than a big jug with a crisp edge. Absolutely. And then good glassware. But that's a whole other episode. I talk about collecting things. I love glassware. We have way too much glassware in the house. Yeah. And the hard part about that is, the better your wine glass, probably the thinner it is and lighter it is, super easy to break. Yeah, absolutely. But then I just start drinking anything out of it. I'll put cocktails in this stuff. I don't care. Okay, neither here nor there. If you had to pick one glass, what do you pick? I love a burgundy glass, a red burgundy glass. Really? I love that wider taper at the bottom and then how it comes in nicely. Yeah. The big balloon glass. Yes. I don't know if we have a good one in here. Almost like a gin goblet. Yeah. But with a lot more. Oh, gin. Yeah, but comes in a lot more. Yeah. You know what? Wine specific or just any glass? Any glass. Rocks glass. A good rocks glass. A rocks glass is awesome. Yeah. It's the easiest thing to use. Everything out of a rocks glass. Everything. Like anytime you get served a margarita at a bar anymore, it's a rocks glass. Yeah, it better be. I just something with a good base, wide but not too wide. I don't want to have to like hold it like a tray, like a good rocks glass. Most wine, no matter how good it was or whatever the glass was that I originally put that into, the last glass is getting poured into a rocks glass. Yeah. Yeah. Riedel's gin is also the Sauvignon glass. And I like the balance that it has. It's not far off from this. It's a little rounder. It's a little smaller. I like it. I think that's awesome. Let's do the next one. Let's do the next one. Great girls out of patience. Okay. Oh. Oh, no. Where's my awesome? So wait, what just happened? What just happened? The corksnap. For our friends. When you're not paying attention. And how are you going to rectify this? I'm going to just try and subtly put this back in here and see if I can get the last five centimeters out. And hope that it doesn't disintegrate. Yeah, this one got, this was a little, I wasn't paying attention. How apropos is this? The cork ripped in half during the how to seller and not rip corks in half episode. Oh, I know that feeling that you have right now. He's prying. I think he's very gently. I worked at this restaurant in Traverse City, Michigan, which is a big wine town. And they wouldn't let you serve bottles of wine until you could open it nearly silent. Yeah. And they would make you with super cheap bottles, kind of break the cork and then figure out how to open it. I would love it if there was like a nervous kid that would just had to whistle every time that was happening. Well done. You fixed that. Look at that. Situation. This is, yeah. That's a good sign of the cork doing its job. Am I going to say this wrong? Potensac. I think you said it right. Potensac. Potensac. Potensac. 2010, a Madaq bottle. That's correct. Merlot Forward, but a pretty close split with Cabernet, and then Cabernet Franc playing a nice role in there as well. Potensac is owned by the Dillon family. Dillon's also owned famed estates in St. Julian, like L'Eauville-les-Casse. 2010, much like its predecessor year, 2009, both fantastic vintages in Bordeaux. Very consistent vintages for maturing, long-term bottle aging, clean, easy vintages. No major spikes, nothing really to rattle it. This was just a steady vintage to get wine in a bottle. This is available at Binny's right now? This is available at Binny's, yeah. This is a producer that we regularly carry. Some nines, some tens are still out there at various stores. I believe fifteens have started to trickle their way out. You can get current releases, but we like to buy the older stuff. So that's a good point about the vintages. 09 and 10 are considered some of the best Bordeaux vintages in the last 30 years. What are your classic vintages that are attainable on the shelf or in the cellar right now? Binny's has some really great partnerships with about four or five Negocians, and that's where you buy Bordeaux from. And we do a really nice job of going back to them and finding back vintages. So 15s and 16s, actually quite a few 16s are coming through, and not even just at this premium, ultra premium level. Like you could find $20, 20, 16s that are coming back around. 15s, 16s are still hanging on the shelves. 18s, 18 as a vintage had a lot of robust fruit, but maybe didn't have the level of acidity to make it go the same length as a vintage like 2019 or 2015, 2016 if you will. But 18s are still on the shelf. They have a few years behind them now and are drinking really nicely. And then 1920 are going to be very collectible as well and good ones to mature for a while. And that's what you're finding out there right now. 22s, drinkers, drink them up now. Drink them up. You could age them for a little bit, and probably for a while, but they're really tasty right now. But yeah, look for those 15s, 16s. 2010, this smells peppery. Cracked black pepper, green pepper. There's fruit, but it seems weighty. It's that fruit leather, and not the good fruit leather either. It's like that Trader Joe's, like that healthy fruit leather. You know what I'm talking about? I do not have fruit leather opinions. Fruit leather? Like you wanted a fruit roll up, but you got fruit leather. Okay, yeah. It's like fruit bark. No, they're so good. They're so good. Fresh fruit nonsense. They're so good. You want a little sweet treat after a coffee, it's good. A cedar spice on here or a chicory or something like that. There's like that accent, a little bit of that dark dried fruit, a little bit of raisinated fruit on there. That's really nice. This is one where you definitely noticed that the tannin, there's still a decent amount of grip there. It's becoming more resolved, but not entirely. Acidity is still really nice in the back. Acidity is perfect where it should be, I think, for actual wanting to drink something. Fruit's gotten a little... I want more fruit. Yeah, me too. Me too. Again, even from a good vintage, this could have had more fruit. This isn't my favorite. I will arrogantly open my wine too young because I do enjoy primary fruit flavors. That's what happens when a wine is still younger. I don't have a problem with too much tannins. Tannin gets rough, but you could always leave something open for a while. I'll open two, three bottles at a time and just be like, all right, that's going to be unlike that's two days from now. This is drinking fine now. This is already dead or whatever. Just playing around and seeing. Well, and tasting as it's open. Oh, yeah. Where are we at with this bottle? It's not even decanting it. It's just having the bottle open. Yeah. This actually might be a little friendlier in an hour or so. I'm not going to wait. Should we pop back in in an hour? Let's give it a shot. We'll pop back in in an hour. Do it. Here comes future us's. Okay. This is us from an hour ago. An hour from now. Well, now is now. We're this is an hour later. One hour later. This is us from an hour later. You should insert SpongeBob voice. One hour later. One hour later. Okay. Do we sound different? I don't know. What do you think? There is more fruit that's come off on the nose. It's a little softer. Yeah. It's still pretty acrid. That's the right word. It's still pretty tannic. But some of that has polished off a little bit. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Tastes like wine to me. Yeah. Okay. Back to us from an hour ago. I want primary fruit. I'm okay with letting something sit for a day or two. Yeah. Like you said, the forethought of like I'm going to enjoy like this is a heavy-duty wine that I have in front of me. I want to enjoy this for dinner tonight or tomorrow, open in advance. A lot of the people that I've talked to that either have a seller or friends of mine that enjoy collecting, and they're collecting Bordeaux and Cab, domestic Cab. So, they love the fruit. If I'm drinking a bottle or sharing a bottle with them, they love the fruit, but they also want something that they're sitting on for an extended period of time because they like the idea of an older vintage. But, I have to explain to them that if you want the fruit, that's only going to fall off over time. Yeah, those forces are in opposition. Yeah, absolutely. And that's where, so going back to this idea of people coming in asking for wine that they can mature, it always comes back to have you had old wine? Do you like older mature wine? Because you're going to be sitting on a lot of money's worth of wine only to find out that this is all raisins or dust and you don't like this. Which comes in clutch when, you know, Binny's does have things that can go back 10, 15 years sometimes. Try those bottles out, take a rider on them before you start deciding that I love this wine, I want to see, I want to just hold on to it for a lifetime. Champagne in particular, I like champagne. Some people want champagne to be like crisp and clean and bright. That doesn't happen when you mature it for a lifetime. You're reading my mind, I was just going to ask you about champagne. Champagne can age magnificently well. It will lose bubble, that's inherent, that it will lose some of that fizz. But now you're getting into all of these spice notes, these savory elements, this fruit, much like a lot of other white wines. So again, a little more gold and a little more raisinated. It changes away from this bright, crisp citrus or like apple-y kind of things happening. Yeah. It gets pretty cool. It can get a little funky sometimes. You can get some must on there, you can get a little barnyard, then get wacky. Yes, champagne can mature. But again, there's a threshold where it's like at some point, this is not going to be the fun, bright, energetic celebratory type thing. It's finessed. You got to baby it a little bit. I agree. There's a point of balance, right? Like with everything. But the weird spicy complexities that built on a foundation of like a shard heavy kind of bready champagne over time. I think one of the most inspiring pairings I ever had was truffles with that kind of champagne, and it just blew my mind. It could have just been the truffles. That sounds so fancy. It was super fancy. It's not like you were wearing sweat pants at this event. Oh, no. That was at one of those expensive hotels downtown. Yeah. Tell me more what happens at Chateau Grec. If you have it in your head that you want to try older sparkling wine, champagne is going to be expensive. It just is. There's a handful of French Accorda's Italian sparkling wine made in the traditional method that are on our shelf that will go back about 10 years or so for maybe 60 to $70, which is a bargain compared to the hundreds of dollars you'll be spending in Ultimately, you walk into one of our stores and talk to one of our wine consultants or wine managers about that specifically. They will geek out so hard for five minutes and you will make their day. You want a quick way to get a $$$ allocation. So bring it up. Oh, yeah. You're already gonna watch some of them, lemonade whiskey. Okay, so here we have, we're rolling the dice on this. 2013, but what is it? Fond Badais. It's a fond badais. How do you spell that? F-O-N-B-A-D-E-T. That sounds right. Yeah, fond badais, huh? Fond badais. My trick with French wines, anything, is I just pronounce 30% of the letters. Everything's silent. Until it's not. So cork already looks a whole heck of a lot better. Went in a whole lot nicer than our 2010, but after 2011, Bordeaux had trouble. Bordeaux got a little dicey. 11, 12, 13, 14 got better. Yields were down. Fruit set was not as nice. So you didn't get these like really bright primary fruit each styles of wine. And for what was produced, longevity wasn't immaculate. Or was it? We'll find out. So we've been talking about French wine or fought over region of France and Germany. For domestics, let me not discard the rest of the world. Australian wine, Chilean wine, South African wine, wine anywhere in general, if made properly with varietals that have the structures to last, will go. Washington State does some killer, killer wines that can be matured very well. California is a gimme. You can knock on the door of 15, almost 20 years on a lot of your big weights out of Napa and Sonoma. But for domestics, you're seeing a lot more value start to come from Washington, where you might see some increased prices in California at this point. High quality, but if you're looking for a value, you can really find that in Washington wine. Absolutely. And that brings up the other point, is that not only expensive wine matures. Expensive wine might have things like lots of new oak, which kind of help build those structures and prolong that longevity. But there's a lot of stuff in maybe 15 to 25 to 30 dollar range that can last, that is made well from good quality grape sources, if not estate vineyards, that does see good attention in the winery. And yeah, you can have, I remember trying a 20-year-old Bernard Griffin Merlot. Like Merlot, just on its own, not really going to go 20 years day to day, not on a 15-dollar bottle. Excellent. It was wonderful. You know when I knew I was in the wine industry, when I could pronounce Goonluck and Boonchoo govrstraminer. Hey, five times fast. Yeah. Hey, I don't want to bust your bubble or nothing, but this smells great. Like that last, that 2010 is like a kind of bucket of rusty nails. Like it's real rough. Yeah. And this smells graceful and cherries and like, I don't know, this smells pretty great. So this is definitely brighter fruit. Yeah. 75% Cabernet, that cuter thing is alive there. That's what it is, yeah. Cabernet is a sexy wine. They are, they're big aromatics there. They're big fruited, big tannin. Like that has it going for it. This wine was also made by famed wine maker Eric Bossinet. Eric Bossinet will consult on, oh, I don't know, most of Pouillac. Like he is, he's called upon to, if you got a rock and roll, if you really want to kick out the gems, you call Eric Bossinet amongst a handful of other really famous wine makers. So the pedigree alone just in who's touching the wines and who's making them and finishing them, that's excellent. He could have looked at Avengers like 13 and been like, I'm gonna make something here. I mean, this smells like violets too. There's like a refined classiness here. That unmistakable kind of crushed rock aspect of Puyak, that red rock thing happening. Yeah. Definitely a little lighter. Now I'm gonna taste it. What? There's a lot in the nose. It is a beautiful nose. It is very floral. But Lexi's very right. It is light. It is light. It's thinner on the palate. There's a bitterness on the back edge that's not necessarily tannin. So that's probably, I don't know. What is that? What is that from? The grapes? Probably. There is just, yeah, just losing that fresh fruit quality. Yeah. It's a little coppery. Yeah. Absolutely. You guys ever visited the submarine at the museum? Yeah. When you step onto that submarine and this smell of iron just fills, like dusty iron, that's what past its prime wine smells like. You'll notice it. Like if I open a really old bottle of white wine and I smell like, if I smell that submarine, I'm out. I'm not even thinking twice. But yeah, I get that dusty iron quality. It's a little bloody. A little sanguine. Not over the top though. I mean, this is- I don't think it's over the top. And I'm a lot more sensitive, I think, than the three of you with those flavors. This is definitely maybe past its peak, but it is still drinking fine. Yeah. So a great testament to even buying this, Bordeaux is wonderful about, not to make this whole thing about Bordeaux, but Bordeaux is a great job. When they get a not great vintage, they price accordingly. Similarly, when they get a great vintage, they price. You better put that quirk back in there and take that home to Mrs. Gabe. No, she's not going to want anything to do with this. She does not like Bordeaux. Oh. Yeah. She just like me. So why doesn't she like Bordeaux? Because it all tastes like red graphite. Yeah. In her words. It's all red graphite until it's pomerol and then I can't afford it. Bordeaux is never my bag either. So that's part of why I don't understand aging wine is because I like primal fruit. I like primal fruit. I like port. Even France and Italy, I'm looking for Rhone. I'm looking for the Cannanaut de Sardinia. You know? I guess those are both Grenache. I just like Grenache. But if we're talking about like some Southern Rhone, you know, some Chateauneuf. You're just destined to be in the climates. I'm nuts about Northern Rhone. Give me that dark fruit with pepper. There it is. Yeah. If you're in Italy, Brunello, Barolo. But Barolo, much like Pinot, it's like you want that. I want that red fruit. I just want red fruit. I don't want to have to wait a lifetime for it. And I know that especially with Burgundy, red Burgundy, especially with Pinot and with Penebbiolo, like you age it too long and that red fruit goes away. And then you just have this savory mess in front of you. I don't like it. Savory is fun, has context, but it's not for drinking. And that's why I've introduced so many people to like Amarone. Like a great Amarone, like newer vintage. So much of that cherry. So much. And then it falls off and becomes like that dark, dense fruit over time. Rob, you got a sweet tooth, don't you? Absolutely not. No? Just with liquor. No, give me a salt lick and we're having a good time. Okay. It's good that you live at the suburbs now. All right, so Rob, similarly with liquor, with spirits, bourbon, scotch, whatever, does it actually get better with age? Does it matter? It's complicated. Whoa. So, a lot of people, you know, a few years ago, we're chasing every new release of, let's just say bourbon. Like, single malt scotch had its day, it's not current. So, let's say bourbon. And chasing age or chasing, you know, finishing cask or whatever it was. And that was for a flavor profile that they were looking for or told, this is something that you seek out. Because it's a lot of blogs and publications saying this is the whiskey of the year, whatever it is. Right. But now a lot of those people have attained those rare bottles or what they've perceived as some of the creme de la creme. And a lot of, and bourbon is very good. It's tasty, it's delicious. You love it, I love it. It is, it's a simple whiskey. And that's great about it. You get that sweetness from the corn, and then you can get some spice from the rye or the barrel, all these things, fruit, etc., from whatever. But you've found all of these things, and you've you've sought these bottles that are aged longer, whether it's 20, 23 years. And now you're looking for the next thing. So then people started going to estate sales, and they started trying things that had been just sitting around for 40, 50 years in someone's cabinet collecting dust. And just like wine, there's an oxidative factor to alcohol, to anything. I mean, oxygen affects all of us all the time. That oxidative quality that affected wine over time to soften it up or to make it more palatable for Bordeaux a long time ago, it's not too far off for whiskey. And that is debated. Some people completely disagree. And they're getting into like closures and stuff like that. And that's whether or not it was a plastic cap or a cork seal, and then how the quality of the cork seal is. But ultimately, there's some level of oxidation that's still occurring regardless. And if it is in good condition, it is essentially softening those wood tannins. No, he's going, he's saying yes. He's saying yes, you should buy a basement full of bourbon. And creating these dusties, and it gets dusty, it gets irony, but it's not bad. But becomes like butterscotch. And butterscotch is- Now you're speaking my language. Exactly. And butterscotch or like these soft, like your grandparents' treats of butterscotch or caramels that they would give you when you would go to their house, it becomes kind of those things. And you might still get some of the cherry, but ultimately, it is regardless of proof, it has softened up to the point where it is quenchable almost. It is you can chug this. It is so easy to drink because all of those jagged edges of the alcohol, of the wood tannins, all of these things have fallen off. And that's where that new level of collecting has come from, where no one in modern era has the ability to really sit on these things because this has become super popularized within the last 10 years. But finding those old dusty bottles has become the new thing. And you see these on auction sites or wherever, but that's what with the new bottles that you can purchase at our stores, they're trying to attain with age. So, for example, there's a distillery, a major distillery that has older releases of bourbon or rye whiskey. Okay. And they have cold storage for it to halt the massive maturation over time because of temperature swings, because a lot of these warehouses aren't climate controlled. So they have their own giant cold storage with racks to soften it and slow it down over time, similar to a wine cellar. And that's how far we've gone to release modern things that are able to taste relatively similar to those things that are the old dusty bottles. Wow. That's interesting. So that's why it's complicated. It is. What's the price point on that? So the short answer is, don't age that whiskey unless you have a really long time. Yes. There's simple standard old bottles of like old granddad or maker's mark that are highly coveted simply because they sat around for 40, 50 years and that line or that extension is just liquid gold. It's pretty awesome. And that's what they're trying to accomplish with various things. So you're seeing these distilleries that have been around for a long time start to play around with cellar aged items or specifically aging them in cold storage. They're really playing around with how they can hyper age whiskey. But in these areas where you're warehousing this whiskey over time, there's massive fluctuations of temperature swings in winter versus summer. And that's only bringing the liquid in and out of the cask at more of a rapid rate or slower rate. And obviously, the colder, the slower it'll be. Rob is gesturing wildly, hands open in the air, breathing, pressing in and out, breathing, like the rib cage of some kind of creature. I'm an agave girl through and through. Is this possible with our agave spirits? What would happen? So, you see some examples. There are some producers that have old releases. There's like a 21-year, 23-year Extra Añejos that are released, and they're aged in caves. So, because they're aged in caves, cooler climate, etc. But even just for a blanco, so like a standard 80-proof blanco, if you were to sit on that for a while, ultimately, over time, it could just lose enough flavor that the oxygen is just taken over. Whereas with whiskey, because of the higher proof, aging in cask, etc., then it's more impacted. But these extra ñejos, like some of the best extra ñejos that we carry, have been aged for an extended period of time in cooler storage like a cave. That's pretty metal. Okay. A couple years ago, vintage aperitifs was a thing. I'm still into them. I'm still so into them. Billy Sunday or Mordecai. Really? All right. Explain why somebody needs to have ancient orange liqueur. Okay. I had the 60s era chinar from Billy Sunday that tastes like liquefied raisins. It's just... But it started as tasting like liquefied artichokes. Yeah. Yes. And that's still amazing. With a raisiny backup coat. So like a fresh cracked bottle. So you know what chinar needs to do? Ditch the artichoke. We just want the raisins. Oh, no, no, no, no. I want both. A fresh cracked bottle has that beautiful like that bitterness, that vibrancy of a little bit of like the citrusy characteristic on top of some of that darker fruit. But then, oh my. So the 60s era chinar. All of that bitterness is kind of like softened out. And then you just get this liquefied raisins. It is just so good. They have bottles. And I've done it with, I've done it with Fernette. I've done it with various things. They're pretty phenomenal. Campari released this kind of like historic series or whatever. Yeah, so they did it different casks. So the cask tales. So it was in different casks, aged longer over time. You'll see some reserve Amaro or Amari. You'll see some of those aged in different casks or extended aging of 12 plus months. And again, that adds a little bit of influence, but it softens up some of the sharper edges. And it's not just bitterness, it's getting some of those additional botanicals in layers. And they're really nice. They're lovely. You get some more of the sweetness. You get some more of the syrupy sweetness and, you know, that raisinated character. I'm just going off of your wingspan talking about this versus bourbon. And I think there should be a transition to people buying vintage Amaro. I was just talking about this last night. It really, it is very exciting to me. All right, wonderful. That was the spirit portion. That was pretty good. Your enthusiasm is infectious. There needs to be a video element to that. It's just conducting through this. We just wrote, we will crab up. Gabe, what other highlights do you have that we need to cover? I think the only thing we haven't really talked to is how does Binny's play into all of this. If you walk into a store, we do have things in the seller that are of age already. If you want to buy something ready to drink now for Bordeaux, you don't have time to decant. That's something I ran into a lot. Can I get an 09 or a 10 so that I can bring it to a party or a restaurant or whatever tonight versus having to do it myself and then experiencing how that can impact the wine to then create that want and desire to do it yourself. Any of our stories, if you walk in in a rush and need something that's fantastic and matured, we'll have an option for you. If you are looking for something in the future, talk to the good people at Binny's. They will help you out. If you are not wanting to leave the home, but still want to chat with somebody, the whiskey hotline or the wine hotline can help you out. This is true. All right, I'm going to say the obvious thing. Oh, wait. Because I want to say the obvious thing. If you also have a question, social media never closes. Social media never closes. We will direct you somewhere else. Comments at binnys.com. Here's my parting thought and my obvious thing that should be said. As a collector of collections, as a collector of things. One, be true to yourself. Collect what you like and like what you collect, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. The other thing is, if you're collecting wine and spirits, taste. Get out there and taste at these tastings. Make relationships with the wine consultant so that you can curate what you like even more, and then collect that. And that's a great point. You're not going to impress me. But if I see the passion on your face and what you're collecting, I'm going to respect it more. But we have so many cool opportunities for that. There are so many events that we have that are going on constantly. Our events page is loaded. Social media is on top of it all the time, Lexi. The designers are really annoyed at how many posters they have to make for all these events. Hopefully the designers don't dislike me too much. But just something cool all the time. So it's this idea of tasting, like try before you buy. Every, at any location in the Chicagoland area, there is an opportunity at some point, whether it's one of our city stores or one of our suburban stores, to have that opportunity. Our teams are super excited about doing these things, and they take all of that information in. Yeah. That's why we do this, that we're doing right here. That's why we say keep tasting every single time. Because that's how the passion starts, and it's how you discover the thing that you love and that you grow into it. Keep tasting and keep discovering all the time. Right? Darn tootin. All right. I feel like I'm lecturing our audience. Love you guys. Thanks for listening. Just be excited and passionate about something. I hated scotch and then Hotline kept making me try it. Now, there's two that I actually really like. Two? I started off with two also. We're getting there. It's pretty good. Two's going to expand real soon. Two in two years, a year and a half. Yeah. All right. So yeah, yeah. Keep tasting. And thanks for listening to the podcast. Come to some of our events. Literally, some of us will be hanging out at some of these events and then you get to speak to us awkwardly. You catch Rob at the back of the next ESPN live broadcast. So yeah, thanks for listening and keep tasting. We'll be back in your feed soon with something good. Until then, I'm Greg. I'm Rob. I'm Lexi. And I'm Gabe. Keep tasting.