Harvey Howard knows how to get on an exclusive wine allocation list. "You gotta wait your turn," he quips. Although savvy wine lovers sometimes resort to stratagems to attain their vinous aims, in the end, nothing but time will help most of us migrate onto those enigmatic lists.

Illustration by Jonathan Barkat

Howard, a Los Angeles lawyer, has collected wine for more than 45 years. And though he is on nearly all the most coveted allocation schedules—including Screaming Eagle, Marcassin, Peter Michael, and Martinelli—one has dogged him for three years: Colgin. "I probably won’t live long enough to get on her list," he laments. To be sure, after spending six years dreaming of the day he would be able to procure an annual lot of Bryant Family, Howard received word this fall that he had at last made the grade. "Now I can rest," he jokes.

For most wine connoisseurs, getting on a prized list, or bumping up one’s allocation, is the favored enophilic sport. Anyone who has phoned a winery hoping to grab a spot knows there are actually two lists: the waiting list to get on the list, and the so-called "active" list. "We are currently moving clients from the waiting list to the mailing list who contacted the winery in 1997," says Ann Colgin, owner of Colgin Cellars, one of the cultiest of Napa Valley’s cult wineries, so dubbed by the industry because of their often fanatical followings. "Our wait list is based on the date you contacted the winery." While this is the policy, it is not always the case; Colgin admits to ferrying devotees to the active list who have purchased pricey lots from charity auctions. Aspirants take note: If you’ve made the winning bid at an auction for any sought-after wine, not just Colgin, it behooves you to discreetly let the winery know.