Cellar Master's Report

Wine & Food Society of Ballarat

Cellarmasters Report for 2011

Thanks for the pleasure of being your Cellarmaster for the past year in which, under the guidance of your Committee, we have continued to revamp our Wine List to be more appropriate to current trends and tastes and to reduce our cellar stock with an emphasis on increased quality and variety.

Looking back to 1993 our Cellar stock numbered 2,045 bottles. As at the stock take at 31/12/2010 this has reduced to 1,690 bottles.

During 2010 we consumed 243 bottles, auctioned off another 240 and purchased 270 – a net reduction of 213 bottles. The Cellar still holds a large component of older vintage wines - in fact 46% (excluding fortified and sparkling) are 10 years + and we are not consuming them fast enough!

Our decline in active membership in recent years has caused the problem so we must either increase our numbers or reduce our Cellar by offering more to members - following our successful clearance last year.

The 2010 purchases cost $ 13,446 - an average of $ 50 per bottle and included a mixture of ‘ready to drink’ wines costing $20 to $35 and some interesting imports costing $70 to $ 130 (with the exception for the 2000 Dom Perignon @ $214).

New wines include many Spanish, French and Italian varieties that are becoming fashionable and offer a greater experience for your palates and offer you the opportunity to drink wines you may not otherwise be able to access!

Thanks to Phil Dover for offering a great variety of wine/food matches and to the many food masters for presenting interesting and challenging menus.

I will continue to update the Cellar list on our Blog which has been a great boon to the Society in communicating with members. Thanks Bob!

Jim Patterson