Some of the first writing on "cellaring" was from Greg Pease, which was inspired by what was going on in select circles of pipesmoking. I don't know the dates or the names of the original circle, but I believe it goes back to the early 2000's, maybe late 1990's.
Greg is also a wine aficionado, involved in winemaking also. So, it makes sense to use the tern borrowed from those who cellar wines. Using it as a verb... to cellar, cellaring, comes from the wine world also.
For years, we have leaned on the writings of Greg Pease for how and what to cellar, because he was the first, and it has only been recently since others have added to our dogma.
It seems to have all come from people looking for old tins, found left stowed back in storage by older pipesmokers after they passed away. Then folks noticed that tins of older Balkan Sobranie had mellowed and sweetened after setting in a dead guys pipe storage area for a few decades. Or, someone finds an out of date tin of a straight Virginia, which smokes amazingly sweeter than what they remember.
It hasn't been but until very recently that Europeans have joined the craze, and pipe tobacco companies expect their blends to be smoked right away, but also recently have considered the demands of those who cellar to make tins that will last longer than just what it takes to get from factory to the retail shelf.
