It is hard to admit that, on at least some level, wine collecting is hoarding behavior. Refined, thoughtful, high-minded, and expensive hoarding behavior perhaps, but hoarding all the same. I think of this on the days I’m faced with anxiety about parting with some precious bottle—which usually means drinking it, which usually means finding the ideal circumstances in which to drink it. And no one has come up with an app that tells you exactly when that is.

Even those with significant collections are faced with the anxiety of opening. Years ago I interviewed a famous importer of French wines. We discussed the great bottles in her portfolio—prestigious selections from Burgundy, Champagne, and the Loire Valley—some of the most revered, expensive, and highly sought-after wines in the world. Near the end of the interview I asked her what sort of wine she likes to open for a typical evening meal. Her answer, without hesitation, was cru Beaujolais. 

This struck me as a startling admission. Here was someone who could theoretically drink a bottle of great Burgundy every single day for the rest of her life, who had a cellar full of Grand Cru—in great vintages—at her disposal. Yet most nights she was perfectly content to open a wine from a relatively unheralded region, well south of where her heart lay. No Grand Cru excursions, no peak experiences. Just a bottle of good juice and good night. 

I came away with a new respect for the importer (and for Beaujolais!). But I wondered if she too suffered from opening anxiety? Does her Cru collection gather dust because she’s reluctant to part with it? Does she defer opening a great wine for a more modest experience, perhaps just as satisfying, but far less likely to be profound? Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?

Those of us who collect wine do so for the pleasure it brings us, in the moment and in the future. Yet many evenings, as I gaze at the racks in my cellar, my eyes inevitably land on the rare ones, the coveted ones—the half-case of older Bordeaux I somehow acquired; the twelve year old Shiraz whose “right moment” continues to elude me, the ‘93 Spätlese I’ve held onto for so long that I’ve probably missed its peak; the expensive bottle of Napa Cabernet that I’m dying to try but can’t quite bring myself to open for fear of the hole it will leave once it's gone. Isn’t it better to have the wine on hand for when I’ll really need it?

But when exactly would that be? I keep thinking there will eventually be an occasion in which it will be the perfect wine. As good as it would be today, it will be even better next year, next month, next decade, next week. 

Then there is the very sticky issue of whether I’ve “earned” the right to open the wine. Is the meal I’m preparing, the day I’ve had—even the life I’m living—worthy of the experience? Of course, by the time you’ve traveled down this road, you know the bottle is going to stay on the rack. (Needless to say, I was raised Catholic.)

These are the kinds of bottles to share with friends, of course, but not just any friends. They have to be close friends, dear friends—ones who can appreciate a special wine, with its pedigree and its price tag and its impossibly long legs and elegant tannins and fond memories and storied history and unalloyed prestige and… I could go on and on.

Plus, they’d have to really want it. They should be able to marvel along with me every step of the way as I luxuriate in the wine’s beauty. They’d have to come up with words to describe it beyond “wow” and “yum.” I’ve been crushed too many times by a less-than-rhapsodic response to a wine I’ve put in front of friends who were just not that into it. In short, they’d have to deserve it. 

And even in the best of circumstances, none of that is guaranteed. So, I wait.

One workaround comes from a friend who hosted a dinner party recently in Seattle. Six of us descended into the cellar and gathered around a small table. Twelve bottles had been pulled, and as a group we were asked to pick four to have with the meal. These were exquisite options, and I’d have happily tried them all. But the discussion, the experience of arriving at a consensus together—weighing the merits of the 2010 Mascarello Barolo with 2007 Chave Hermitage or the 1999 Ridge Geyserville—was invigorating. Cleverly, our host had transposed whatever anxiety he may have felt to us, where it was easily dissipated. In the end, our wine selection became one of the more thoughtful and provocative moments of the evening, and it certainly helped to make it memorable.

So what am I waiting for? I admit to holding back bottles from guests who I feared would not appreciate them, only to feel mildly guilty when the wine I served wasn’t as grand as it could have been. What I’m starting to realize is that a vital part of having a collection is parting with it. Perhaps, like muscles, our instincts for generosity and for hoarding need to be exercised in equal measures. Put another way—a collection loses some of its value if it isn’t shared.

A collector friend of mine recently pointed out another obvious truth—how someone experiences a wine you share is largely out of your control. But, he added, you might just play a role in someone’s oenophilia breakthrough. “You never know when someone is ready for their first transcendental wine experience,” he said, “one that changes their relationship to wine forever.”

He’s right. Enabling peak experiences should be a part of why you have a collection in the first place.