Cellarmaster's report

Wine & Food Society of Ballarat

Cellarmasters Report for 2013

Thanks for the pleasure of being your Cellarmaster for the past year in which I have continued to remodel our Cellar List to be more suited to your liking and to reduce our cellar stock with an emphasis on increased quality and variety.

Looking back to 1993 our Cellar contained  2,045 bottles.   As at the stock take at 31/12/2013 this has reduced to 1,499 bottles which is 200 less than our stock at the end of 2010 and is at a level I think appropriate to our needs.   The estimated ‘Market Value’ of our Cellar is $ 103,000 at an average of $ 70 per bottle.

During 2013 we consumed 179 bottles, purchased 173 and had a wonderful Donation of 23 bottles from Bob House – ranging from Grange to Chateau de Y’Quem – a net increase of 17 bottles.   The Cellar still holds a large component of older vintage wines and we are not consuming them fast enough.

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

The 2013  purchases cost $ 8,544 - an average of $ 50 per bottle and included a mixture of ‘ready to drink’ wines costing $20 to $40 and some interesting  imports costing $50 to $ 100 – the exception being $414 for a bottle of 1976 Grange to match the two Bob gave us.

Thanks to John Coco and Mal Anderson for offering a great variety of wine and food matches at some of the better Restaurants around town.

I will continue to update the Cellar list on our Blog which has been a great boon to the Society in communicating with members.  As a bonus I have added some fabulous Krug Grand Cuvee to our Champagne list for this year!

Thanks, 

Jim Patterson