Trends in cellaring of wine

[hotwine]

I agree, IK, there's probably very wide variation in "cellaring habits" among the wine-buying population. There are those who use a storage facility only to "rest" a wine for a few weeks after purchase, and there a few who buy premium juice suited for aging 20, 40, 60 years, and have adequate storage to do that. If a survey were to sample the habits of typical wine shop patrons, there would probably be a large percentage in the short-term group; but if the survey focused on buyers of wine futures, it would probably turn up a large segment of folks who were in it for the long haul. It would be possible to pre-determine the results of the survey by directing it at defined sub-populations within the overall group. An interviewer would need to determine which segment of the population best defined a given respondent, and then determine the length of time each respondent stored wine prior to consumption. It could get kind of complicated. And after all the data were compiled, what sort of validity could be assigned to it? How representative would be the respondents in relation to the total wine-buying public? Not an easy task to sort out.