Wine cellar: size?

[jaybee]

I tried to reply to this on the original thread but it seems locked.  So I'll try this method.  I started a cellar in earnest in 1966.  Being a novice, I decided that the more the better, so I built a cave that could hold about 1000 bottles.  I used octagonal clay tiles (they're called "ag tiles" and used for leaching fields for septic systems!).  Each holds a 750 ml bottle perfectly.  I eventually bought 80 cases (about 950 bottles).  Being a novice wine snob I went right for the top and bought mostly first growth Bordeaux reds (a good smattering of premier grand crus) and too many whites for our drinking frequency. (I have some lovely grand cru Chablis from 1966 that make nice bookends).  A few very good burgundies from the early '60s found their way in too.  (Recently drank a '66 Bonnes Mare (or is it Bonne Mares?) that was down there for over 25 years and it was wonderful).  The average price (1966-1972) was about $65-$96 per case of 12 750 ml bottles!  I am just now drinking the last of my '66s, '70s and have a few '75s.  The '61s are all gone, alas.  The cellar is in our weekend house so we drink fewer than four bottles a month, if that, except for summer, when the champagne and young white wine consumption goes up.  The point of all that history is to say that if you enjoy good wine, you'll never get it as inexepensively as when you do the aging.  So my advice is to build as large a cellar as you can possibly build and stock it with as much good wine as you can afford, including futures.  Within reason, of course.  (Excellent Bordeaux futures can be had for relatively reasonable prices.  Unfortunately I missed all of the 2000 offerings before the Parker ratings caused them to skyrocket). Then drink good young wines until your stock is ready.  At that point, depending on your age and liver, just deplete, deplete, deplete.