Cellar Master's report 2016

Wine & Food Society of Ballarat : Cellar-Master’s Report for 2016

2016 was my second year as Cellar-master and believe that I have done the Cellar and the Members proud!

In 2015 the number of bottles in the cellar dropped by about 100, that is from around 1400 bottles to around 1300 bottles, this was mainly due to a smaller budget and wine prices being higher.

During that year we consumed 232 bottles (204 from the cellar) and spent $7685 to buy 136 bottles; it was either a choice of buying more, lesser quality wines or less, better quality wines, I opted for the latter.

In 2016 an increase in my budget allowed me to help improve on the number of bottles kept in the cellar.

We consumed 250 bottles of wine (227 from the cellar) throughout 2016, I spent over $14,000 to buy 269 bottles at an average cost of $52.75;  there was around 1360 bottles in the cellar at the end of the year with a conservative value of $96,300.

I believe that around 1350 bottles is a good number of wines to maintain in the cellar and if we continue to consume around 250 each year and replace around similar number this should allow for a good balance of new and older wines.

John Coco

Cellar-Master - January 2017