The Expansion

    Not everyone is an adrenaline junkie, but everyone does get that zip of excitement from one thing or another. For many wine lovers, that adrenaline junkiness comes out when a newly prized wine is found. There’s nothing quite like that high of holding a newly coveted bottle, knowing that one day the cork will be popped, and the flavors, story and history of the wine will flow into the glass and share its secrets to the drinker. That’s the ultimate feeling.

    Back in the late summer of 2017, my wine collection consisted of about eight bottles I had picked up from here or there, displayed on a 16-bottle rack located in our basement library. Coming from the days of my 20s where I only had a bottle or two in house at one time, it always gave me such a thrill to know that I could simply walk down the stairs and select a wine of my choosing.

    For my husband and I’s annual trip that year, we had decided to do a nine-day southwest road trip in early September. With a definite planned stop at the Caduceus Cellars tasting room in Jerome, AZ – the winery owned by Tool and Perfect Circle musician Maynard Keenan – and a couple of other potential winery stops along the way, I made sure to have ample space open in my little wine rack for the few bottles I knew I would be bringing home. I had no idea what I was in for. With visits to the Santa Fe, NM tasting room of Gruet Winery, Caduceus, Silver Strike Winery in Tombstone, AZ, a stay at The Trinity Hotel in Carlsbad, NM where you could purchase bottles of their family owned Balzano Vineyard wines, plus a plethora of novelty wines including a label created for Big Nose Kate’s in Tombstone, I didn’t come home with a few bottles of wine, I came home with a few cases of wine.

    As I quickly filled the open spaces in my racks, I was left with boxes of bottles with no rack space to call home. I loved each of these bottles, not just for the sheer quality each held, but for the pure emotional tie I had to each. To this day, that trip still holds court as my most epic and memorable trip, and each of these bottles would remind me of that time. What the hell was I going to do with all of this wine?

    With the eye sore of boxes and my frustration in having to dig through them to locate a bottle I knew was somewhere, just not exactly where, my husband and I restarted a discussion we had had numerous times before. Next to the library was a room that had never been fully finished. It currently served as a utilitarian gym that held our workout equipment and not much else, and for the past couple of years we had talked about drywalling it and fixing it into a more hospitable looking gym. My husband now suggested that we not only finish that room, but also turn the closet in the room into a sort of wine cellar. As we rolled into December, the prospect of wines displayed in neat little rows danced in my head, just like those sugar plums were dancing in others.

    During January and February of 2018, my husband labored over that room. Electrical work, dry wall, paint, a 144-bottle wine rack, and shelves to house my wine glasses and wine reading materials… it was like watching the most beautiful puzzle come together. And, days before my 33^rd birthday, I had my very own wine closet.

    The weekend prior to my birthday, I spent hours in that room, organizing my wines by type, each variety getting its very own space, while the light shimmered off my wine glasses hanging in pristine condition, just waiting to be used. We went to various stores, finding the perfect wine themed décor to place along the walls and shelves, turning what used to be a drab and dark space into a room full of life and beauty; a combination gym and wine room.

    Shortly after everything was completed, I was reading an article in Wine Spectator that featured a woman’s personal wine collection. In the article, the woman mentioned she had started with a 200+ wine cellar and had almost instantly filled it to the brim and was forced to expand, and keep expanding. I remember chuckling to myself, wondering what was wrong with the woman. I could never imagine filling up my rack. Little did I know that her sickness was a disease almost all wine lovers have, and that I would be catching that bug myself very soon.

    As time rolled on, my meager collection grew and grew. I just had to buy a case from this winery or that winery because they didn’t ship and who knew if I would ever be back there, I had 12 spots in my wine suitcase and I wanted 12 bottles to remember the trip by, if I was going to already pay for shipping, I might as well have a half or full case shipped, it just made sense. And, this past summer, as my sweet husband went and found a local Wal-Mart in Idaho Falls to purchase a cooler because I could not decide on what Idaho wines I wanted and had run out of space in Winnie the Wine Suitcase days ago, I realized the wine buying bug had fully caught me. This happy problem was exemplified when I got home and found that not only was my 144-bottle, and my old 16-bottle, rack completely filled, I had wines stacked on top of each other on the floor of the closet. I was right back to where I had started; where the hell was I going to put all of this wine?

    This problem continued to be a problem until one day a few weeks back. After listening to my grumbling while digging out a bottle of wine on the floor in the very back corner of the wine closet, conveniently sitting under two other bottles, my husband looked around the gym and said, “Why don’t we just get another wine rack to put on the back wall?” What a simple and ingenious thought. After months and months of digging, or simply not drinking a wine that was at its prime because I didn’t want to go through the effort of pulling it out, why had this thought never occurred to me? After a week or so of pondering, a new 42-bottle wine rack was ordered.

    A couple days later, the rack was built, and we began deciding how we were going to rearrange the back wall of the gym. As I started pulling wines off the closet floor, the depth of my wine buying addiction became abundantly clear, as even with this new rack, I would still have wine on the floor. The ever-patient love of my life simply pulled out his phone and ordered another wine rack, and then proceeded to organize the space to hold three racks and the bins housing my excess wine glasses – yeah, wine glass shopping is another problem I have.

    After a good two afternoons of organization, and apparently a great quad workout from the ache I was feeling after that constant up and down, I had my revamped wine collection. Gone was my effort to try and group wines by variety, and instead  I have my wines that can or should be aged in the closet, wines that are ready to be consumed over the next couple of months spread between the two 42-bottle racks , and in my trusty old 16-bottle friend, I have empty bottles I have collected over the years that were too special to let go of.

    Looking at this, let’s be honest, insane amount of wine I have, I know I really should feel some shame in the number. I just can’t. Each of those bottles holds a story from a specific time in my life. With each bottle currently housed in my collection, and each bottle the future will bring, I have built myself a very delicious path down the memory lane of my life.