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| Commercial Appeal Article This article is from the February 28, 2004 issue of the Commercial Appeal.  There's a point at which you realize that you're not just bringing home wine to have with dinner. You're bringing home wine because you want to hold on to it, look at it, think about how it will taste in 5 or 10 years and have the chance to experience it then. And the boxes of wine are piling up in the closet, crowding out the coats and shoes. That makes you a collector, which means you have to decide how you're going to take care of that wine and how you're going to live with it."It's major contagious excitement," said John Vego at Buster's Wine and Liquors. "People catch the wine bug and they have to have more wine. They read magazines and books about wine. They go to tastings and wine dinners. They want to learn what a wine can actually do. I have to slow people down because it's almost addictive." The collecting urge often begins with a "certain wine or type of wine that they love," said Vego, "and that brings them into it," For Mark Massey, it was the Bordeaux red wines that an uncle introduced him to in the 1980's. "He developed a pretty nice collection," Massey said, "and I saw how much he enjoyed those wines. It was a natural progression for me." Massey and his wife Suzanne began to accumulate wine until they had so much "in closets, behind things" that they bought a wine cooler to hold 200 to 220 bottles. "But after four or five years that was full." said Massey, "and we still had cases and cases all over the place. When we renovated in 1999, we decided to convert my lod study into a wine room. It doesn't make sense to cool a closet that holds 300 to 400 bottles, but if you can do a room, then the collection can grow." At what point does a lot of wine turn into a collection? "With about three cases of serious wine," said Vego. "That's way more than most people even consider having around the house. And if it's serious wine and you're serious about it, you have to protect it." Robert Sbravati, owner of Wine Cellar Solutions in Germantown, helped the Masseys with every aspect of their 10 by 10 foot wine room. 
"I have a contractor who can consult or do the whole job," said Sbravati. "In this case he did everything. We designed the racking system and had it built at the factory and shipped to the Massey's, and our contractor installed it. We had the room properly insulated. And we installed the cooling system."The cooling system, a standard air-conditioning unit with the compressor outside, adds $20 or $30 a month to the Massey's utility bill, "but the room is so well insulated," Massey said, "that every time I go in there, it isn't on." The room, which can hold about 2,000 bottles but know holds 800 to 1,000, has redwood racking (which is resistant to moisture), a sandstone floor, an old table from Bordeaux and antique chairs from Paris. "We had Valentine's dinner in there," said Massey. "It's big enough that we can have four people for dinner. It makes a great setting." Because his palate was first exposed to wines from Bordeaux, where cabernet sauvignon and merlot grapes reign, Massey focuses on that region and has bought heavily in vintages of late 1980's and early 1990s. The Masseys wouldn't dream of having any dinners without wine, but they don't always drink those valuable bottles of Bordeaux. "We love rose and Beaujolais. We're learning a lot about Spanish wines. And we love the wines of the Loire Valley." One of the problems with the world of wine is that there's so much wine in the world. "It's too much. You can't know everything." said Jana Fuqua, who with her friend Shirley Burkeen concentrates a small collection on red wine of California, Oregon and Washington, mainly merlots and cabernet sauvignons. They started the way many people do. "From reading about wine," Fuqua said, "going to tastings, we just got interested in what was happening locally." For Fuqua and Burkeen- "she's the cook, I'm the eater,: Fuqua said- wine is unthinkable without food. "We didn't realize that the key was matching food and wine, that having the right wine with the right food makes a difference. We love the wine dinners. That's when we started buying more wine. Then it got to be fun." 
When the wine began to spill out from cabinets to rest on the floor, Fuqua and Burkeen bought a 220-bottle wine cooler that stays in the garage of their home near Colllierville. She considerd 220 bottles "a fun amount, a drinkable amount. We're not interested in 3,000 or 5,000 bottles. We have wine that we'll store for 10 years and wine that we will drink sooner. It's a mix of concepts."Keeping the insulated wine cabinet in the garage has an advantage for Fuqua, who is in a wheelchair. It gives her room to move around. Besides, she said a little sheepishly, "We have another cabinet in the house for the nonserious wine. It holds about 40 bottles." Tom Cassidy, owner of American Seafood, knew he had turned from a wine buyer to a collector when his wife, Mary Lynn, told him that he couldn't keep wine sitting around in the den anymore. The solutions was a wine room that occupies about 350 square feet, the size of a respectable bedroom, in the Cassidy's house in Germantown. The insulated, refrigerated chamber can hold 3,500 bottles, and though it's not filled to capacity the kinds of wine in it testify to the seriousness of the collection: Bordeaux wines from the 1930s and '40s; California cabernets starting with the classic years of the 1970s; Burgundy going back to 1969; some older ports. And a lot of Italian wines, a speciality with the Cassidys. The room has a tasting table with chairs, an area for opening bottles "with all the accouterments, a rack for hanging glasses, that sort of thing." Cassidy said. The couple will serve aperitifs in the wine room, but thought it's large enough for dinners, they don't do that. "I keep it at 49 degrees," said Cassidy. "Not many people like to be at that temperature for too long." Cassidy continues to purchase wine for their cellar. "I'm pleased that so many new wines are available in Memphis," he said. "It's exciting that we can get things you used to not be able to get. And with the economy turning around, I think we're going to see Memphis become a booming market for wine." |
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