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Creating a home cellar

Where to start? First things first: we recommend kicking things off with your favourite varietal from your favourite winery. That’s Moorilla, of course (wink, wink etc., etc.). Buy at least three bottles from three consecutive vintages (eg. three each from 2008, 2009, 2010, and so on). When you’ve got these, drink one from each vintage in the same sitting (you party animal, you) or at least around the same time. We recommend picking a special day for said drinking so you don’t forget. If it’s fizz, the festive season and New Year’s Eve are ideal. If it’s a table wine, perhaps crack open one bottle (or all three) on your birthday. Share the experience with your best chums and family. They’ll feel super special.

The first thing you’ll see is vintage variation. The style will usually stay the same with a slight tweak to the winemaking. The weather will have been different across these years and this will be obvious in the wines. You’ll begin to understand what kind of vintage you prefer. You might prefer how warmer vintages produce riper flavours, darker colour and body, and a softer finish.

Drink each of your three wines from the same vintage a few years apart. You’ll begin to understand if you prefer a wine in its youth or maturity. The flavours of some mature wines can be an acquired taste, such as Riesling. Practice makes perfect. Tough gig.

How about fizz to get your collection started? It’s quick and easy to collate a bunch of sparkling wines—you’ll be popping the cork of ten-year-old sparklings before you know it. Take a quick trip around Tasmania’s cellar doors and you’ll find heaps of five- to ten-year-old sparklings for purchase. Now picture your wine fridge (you should probably get one of those) with a shelf of six spaces. Buy a sparkling that’s five years old, another that’s six and so on, until you have six different vintages ranging from five to ten years old. If you can’t do it all at once, gather and be patient. When you finally drink your ten-year-old sparkling, replace it with a five-year-old sparkling to maintain your collection. As each year goes by, you’ll have a special bottle ready to roll.