There’s a moment when a wine collection stops being about what’s in the bottle and starts becoming about who you’ll share it with. For me, that realization didn’t happen all at once. It crept in over time, somewhere between collecting bottles for myself and realizing I was quietly, yet purposefully, collecting for my kids.
When my son and daughter were born (2010 and 2012 respectively), I started setting aside wines from those vintages. At the time, it felt like a thoughtful gesture, maybe even a little romantic. But now, with them almost 14 and 16, those bottles feel like something more. It’s not just a case of wine on a shelf for each of them any longer; they’re placeholders for moments that haven’t happened yet.
If I’m being honest, my dad is the reason I think this way about collecting. He’s the one who introduced me to wine (and maybe a little bit younger than he should have, but that’s another story.) There wasn’t some formal sit-down where he taught me how to swirl and sniff. It was simpler than that…It was about food on the table and an aged bottle of Riesling he was enjoying with it. Or a wicker-based Chianti that he and my grandpa were enjoying over some freshly made pasta and gravy. Sure, there were probably a couple of early (supervised!) sips along the way. But it wasn’t about “drinking” and partying it up. It was about paying attention to what was in the glass and talking about all the sensory experiences that we were noticing. Wondering why one wine tasted different from another.
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Even before I could fully understand it, I could feel that wine meant something more to him. Eventually, it started to mean something more to me, too. That’s the part that I think gets overlooked by many. You don’t fall in love with wine because someone hands you a great bottle that is worth hundreds of dollars… although that certainly doesn’t suck. You become enthralled with it through moments, meaningful conversations, and emotions. And more often than not, those moments happen with a wine mentor. For me, that someone was my dad.
Tasting Together
Some of my favorite memories with my father are tied to bottles we’ve shared over the years—wines from Burgundy, the Rhône, and Napa Valley. We’ve opened bottles from Gevrey-Chambertin (my epiphany wine that we shared as a family) and Gigondas that turned into long conversations, debates, and the occasional friendly argument about what we were tasting. What started as him teaching me slowly turned into something more balanced as our wine knowledge and passion reached the same level. There are times now where I’ll offer him the first glass of wine at an occasion, and he will ask me what it is. My response is almost always… “You tell me, pops.” And more often than not, he still gets it right!
Just like sports, wine helped us connect in a way that didn’t feel forced. It created space to spend time together, to share something, to learn from each other. And somewhere along the way, it became our thing. Now, as a father myself, I think about that more than I probably expected to. My kids aren’t there yet, although a supervised and educated sip may or may not still be enjoyed. But those birth-year bottles are still resting, evolving slowly in the cellar, just waiting for the right opportunity to enjoy them with my kiddos. I already find myself thinking about the day we’ll open them and taste what has been collected on their respective shelves. Not because I expect some life-changing tasting note (although that would be awesome!), but because I know precisely what that moment can represent.
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Twenty-plus years in a properly stored cellar, protected from heat, light, vibration, oxygen, and odors, can turn a bottle into something complex and layered. But even more than that, it turns it into a shared experience that’s been building over time. And the truth is, they might not love it right away. Aged wine isn’t always the most popular wine for new drinkers, as it doesn’t typically have that big concentrated fruit or power. Most often, bottle age will bring about elegance, refinement, and some form of earthy or dried fruit notes. But that’s not really the point. The point is the realization that what’s in the glass has been there, waiting, for as long as they’ve been alive.
Maybe it turns into a shared interest and maybe, if you’re lucky, it turns into something bigger and more meaningful. Trips to wine regions, walking vineyards together, tasting through new wines. Maybe one day you’re sitting in a tasting room in Napa Valley or the Finger Lakes with your kids, or wandering through a village in Burgundy, picking out bottles not just to drink, but to save for their own future moments.
I’ve seen how that plays out over time with my dad. The conversations are different and the dynamic has shifted. There are moments where I’m still learning from him, and others where I can challenge him and expand his knowledge and appreciation. It’s not about who’s right, it’s always about the experience of figuring it out together.
The Right Bottles with the Right People
Then, there’s the part no one really talks about when they start collecting: you’re just not going to be able to drink everything you’ve collected over the years. At some point, you realize the cellar you have been building over decades wasn’t just for you. These bottles are meant to be opened, shared, and, in some cases, passed on. Some of the best bottles I’ve had weren’t the most expensive or the rarest… they were the ones opened at the right time with the right people.
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If I’m lucky, collecting doesn’t stop with me. Maybe one day it’s not just me and my kids at the dinner table with a fabulous bottle of wine, but my dad, too (and my mom, of course). Three generations, popping open one of my kids’ birth-year wines, and having a spirited and passionate conversation not only about the wine, but about the year on the label and all of the wonderful memories that came along with it.
At the end of the day, wine collecting isn’t really about building a cellar. It’s about taking something that naturally evolves over time and tying it to the people you care about most. And if you do it right, those bottles don’t just age well… they can bring your family closer together than you may have ever imagined, one glass at a time.
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The post My Dad Was My Wine Mentor. Now, I Collect for My Kids appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.
Ref: https://www.wineenthusiast.com/basics/collecting-wine-father-child-tradition/
