I have always considered people who collect wine in an obsessive wall-to-wall manner to be harmless Bluebeards. How else could one describe people whose pleasure & passion consists in locking up living organisms, solely to possess them ? In my view, regardless of its provenance, its perceived value or for that matter its rarity, wine has been cultivated, nurtured in nature and made, simply to be appreciated, shared and like any other comestible, consumed with pleasure before during or after its fleeting moment of prime. The notion of transformation into iconic status equals death, pillar of salt & inevitable worthlessness.

I have recently been reminded in a curious & gripping manner of how unsuitable wine is in the role of collector item. In an enthrallingly written piece the New Yorker brings to light the existence of large quantities of collector greats of historical significance and imense perceived value that are now considered to be counterfeit bottlings. The brilliant piece details the quest of an American collector for truth with regard to the millions of $ of wine crowding his cellar. It appears as if large parts of Bill Koch’s (coke to his friends) historical collection and by deduction, the collections of others, are in reality cunningly presented 100 point score fakes. Obtained from highly reputable sources. If one quotes Christies, of ‘inestimable’ value.

It is one thing to have a ‘reproduction’ painting that most people will still appreciate for its beauty, quite another to know that, if you dare, the mysterious bottle you are going to ingurgitate – on the basis that you might as well pop the cork, the bottle now being worthless – is of dubious origin, could even have been made in CHINA. Raise your glass ? Well perhaps, on reflection, no. We will keep this one for a special occasion.

One can reasonably conclude that 200-year-old bottles of Grand Vin are simply, when one can find them, likely to be past their best, deceased or simply faked. Where dose this leave our wine collector ?

Our ancestors did, it is true, hoard wine in worrying quantities, laying down far more than was necessary for development of gout and generously for future generations. We would be short sighted to overlook the fact that they always did this with an enjoyment finality in view. After all, where is the thrill in showing your friends a great bottle of vinegar ?

Long before the arrival of counterfeit Magnums of great Bordeaux I was at an informal dinner with Steven Spurrier & a fairly young but wine appreciative bunch of friends. Steven, impulsive as ever, decided once the evening had warmed up a little, that we should taste a Mouton 1945 from a Magnum. He simply interrupted the animation of our late evening burble to say we had one of the most extraordinary wines ever made in our glasses & that it would be a mistake to let it pass unnoticed. Risk taking is part of life. Steven shared an iconic and priceless wine, especially in magnum, a decade before the hype. It was a memorable moment in our young lives, showing us how amazing a great mature Medoc could be, providing an insight and benchmark of excellence for discernment & appreciation, not available to those who simply gloat at their fine collections.

So corkscrews out please, Hardy Rodenstock had one thing right in my view, “you don’t spit history”, was his line.