Who is the lucky b#st*rd who bought my 2005 Lindemans Limestone Ridge?

Who's the lucky bastard who bought ALL my 2005 Lindemans Limestone Ridge?!?

I just opened a bottle and it is brilliant!  I remember the tasting and the great deal I got on this wine.  We had a magnificent afternoon several years ago in the Lindemans Still House.  Things were different at Lindemans then.  Aaron was serving us that day and he is driving a truck now.  Damien the heart and soul of Lindemans for a dozen years was pushed out by the 'suits working the numbers' from Treasury Wine Estates. (I could go on and on about how this will cost TWE hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars but will save that for another post!)

We were sampling and bought some great, great 2005 Lindemans St George and Limestone Ridge that day.  However, I have greatly over-bought wine since returning from Qatar, and once I inventoried it, I was shocked to find out how much wine I had and how much I spent.  I had close to 3,800 bottles of wine!  Frankly, looking back I am astounded at my stupidity in terms of continuing to collect so much wine.  Each purchase on its own was a good deal, but I bought too much at a time and too much to drink over time.  My pleasure had become my burden!

Therefore, I felt I needed to sell off a lot and get it back down to a 'much more reasonable' inventory of about 1,500 - 2,000 bottles.  I have sold off about 1,000 bottles so far, but still have about 1,000 more to go.  Since I had so much I wanted to clear, I priced it at a good price point and I decided not to reserve any bottles as 'not available.'  I felt that I had so much great wine, that it was unlikely someone would buy all of one brand and vintage and even if they did, I had other comparable wines I could still really enjoy.  For example, if someone bought all of my 2004 Penfolds Bin 389 (a superb wine), then I still had my 2005 Lindemans Limestone Ridge.  But damn it!  Now I have neither! And seriously, I did not expect my 12 bottles of various vintages of Penfolds Grange from 1981 - 1996 to all sell since they were so expensive.  Boy, was I wrong and do I regret it now!.  I only have one bottle of the 1981 Grange left (which I have set in reserve for my later drinking pleasure) and one bottle of the 1996 Grange (a most magnificent year!) which is still for sale as it needs a number of years yet to mature, so I am not putting in my 'reserve.'

I no longer have any of the 2000 Houghton Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon which is one of the best Cab Savs of all time.  And I sold off my 2005 Limestone Ridge which I did not realize I would miss so much until I found an odd bottle in the apartment Vintec wine fridge and opened this evening.  Damn, is it good!  And I paid such a good price for it.  I feel like I have lost some close personal friends never to be spending time with them again, including the:

• 1999 Penfolds St Henri
• 1999 Lindemans Stevens Shiraz
• 1981 and 1982 Penfolds Grange
• 1987 Lindemans Pyrus
• 2005 Houghton Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (mentioned above)
• 2005 Lindemans Limestone Ridge (mentioned above)
• 2006 Gabbiano Chianti
• 2006 Penfolds RWT

Therefore, I have now set aside a 'reserve' of about 100 bottles that I must have moving forward and are not for sale.  I have lost many good friends (bottles of wine!) through the process, but in most cases also feel good that while my wines have been 'cherry-picked,' they often have gone to friends with good palates.  However, I have parted with some outstanding wines which I have had in the cellar for up to ten years and cared for and looked forward to drinking in the future.  My wife cried when I told here about selling off all of her favorite 1999 Lindeman Stevens Shiraz, but I was fortunate to find one lone bottle in the Vintec and one more at our place in the Hunter Valley which we can enjoy as special treats in the months ahead.

But drinking my last bottle of the 2005 Lindemans Limestone Ridge tonight makes me ask me once again the question, "Who is that lucky bastard that bought ALL of my 2005 Limestone Ridge?"