Selling Wine at Auction

Does anyone have any experience selling wine at auction?

Here's my deal. Last year I received an allocation of Sea Smoke Pinot Noir. I was able to purchase 4 bottles of the Southing and 2 bottles of the Ten. As you know, this stuff is pretty expensive. I plan on holding onto these bottles for a few years.

This year's allocation have just come through and I have been alloted 14 bottles this year. Now, while I can afford to purchase all 14 bottles (8 Southing and 6 Ten) I'd really rather not have that kind of money tied up in one wine. My conumdrum is, I'd really like to have the wines in my collection.

Now, I could purchase just a portion of my allocation, but then, my offering next year may go down, which I'd like to avoid.

So I'm thinking, purchase the entire allocation, and sell part of it at auction.

I have very little experience with wine auctions outside of charity events. I've been to one live auctiona dn have purchsed a few bottles over the years at an online auction site. Ideally I'd like to get a bit more than I paid for each bottle. Is this even a possibility?

Oh I should add that my wines are stored in a temperature and humidity controlled environment.

Any thougts are appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

http://wineberserkers.com/viewforum.php?f=7

Make a post with a title like "Sea Smoke Allocation At Cost", then fill in the details in the post. If you're lucky, someone in the Chicago area will take you up on your offer.

Me? Not interested. Sea Smoke s̶y̶r̶a̶h̶ pinot noir isn't among my favorites.

You may want to talk to the winery. Some wineries, upon finding that one of their mailing list customers has sold wine at auction, cuts that person off. Of course it gets done, a lot. Just a thought...

Larger auction houses sometimes have minimums and/or seller fees. So it might be easier to try Ebay first. You could also check out The Chicago Wine Company (tcwc.com).

Darren72 wrote:... it might be easier to try Ebay first...

Not so fast.
--Rich

You can check with Winebid.com but they might have a minimum... The bonus is they have a Chicago area office.

The wineberserkers.com commerce corner could work as well but it does help to be a regular poster there...
(pretty sure you will have to register to see the commerce corner)

you can also consign at some of the local rare & fine wine outlets like Hart Davis Hart, Flickingerwines.com*






*family involvement, no personal $$ stake...

RAB wrote:

Darren72 wrote:... it might be easier to try Ebay first...

Not so fast.
--Rich

Wow. I didn't realize it was so complicated. At one point Ebay didn't allow any wine sales. I checked today and found a this Sea Smoke pinot for sale, which is why I presumed you could now sell (easily) on Ebay. Apparently you have to become a certified seller of some sort, which seems to require that you have a license to sell wine. So this seems to be a no-go.

People seem to post and sell directly in the Wine Spectator forums. That might be the simplest way to go.

As long as you offer your allocation at cost, there won't be a concern with getting cut off by the winery. We're talking Sea Smoke here, not Sine Qua Non! You can also contact the winery and ask if they will maintain future allocations if you don't order everything. But you're taking a real chance doing so, because if they say no, you have alerted them to your intention of selling part of your allocation, and they may reduce your future allocation anyway. This actually happened to a friend of mine with Quilceda Creek.

Being a regular poster on the Berserkers or Wine Spectator boards is much less an issue with offering at-cost allocations than it is with selling wines outright for a profit. I'd try both boards if I were you.

I've sold wines at a few auctions and have found the process very easy. I had dealt with The Chicago Wine Company years ago and they were very helpful. You will tell them what you have, how it's been stored, and they will give you an estimate. Drop the wine off and you're done. However, their minimum consignment is $2500 for sellers. I'm not sure what the sellers' premium is so that may make it difficult to break even. I'm on a lot of mailing lists, including Sea Smoke. I have some friends that will take some of my allotment, but that's not always the case. If you have friends in other parts of the country no problem. All Ways Cool will pick up your shipment and divide and ship. Lately, if I don't want all the wine, I've just bitten the bullet and let my allotment go down. Imho, I don't believe it's worth trying to auction the wine unless it's really rare. Another route I've taken is approaching a neighborhood wine store who you've done business with, and inquiring as to their interest in putting some of the wines on their shelves. I've been successful unloading Kistler, William's Selyem, and Turley.

Hey everybody, I am new to the forum. I will be moving out of state and don't want to take my collection of Norma Jean and Marilyn Merlot wines with me. Does anyone know of someplace where I can sell them? Looking the wines up on-line I see that a 1989 vintage, which I have, is worth $3k. I'd like to get a fair price, but don't know much about where to market them. Suggestions?

Looking the wines up on-line I see that a 1989 vintage, which I have, is worth $3k.

That's the case price:

http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-1184- ... valley-usa

Divide by 12 to get the bottle price.

You can probably work through the Hart Davis Hart website to see if they've ever sold these wines.
http://www.hdhwine.com/

That would give you a rough estimate of what you could get at auction (if they could sell it).

SolitaryChef wrote:You can probably work through the Hart Davis Hart website to see if they've ever sold these wines.
http://www.hdhwine.com/

That would give you a rough estimate of what you could get at auction (if they could sell it).

HDH would probably not be an appropriate place to auction these wines. It is possible (but maybe not likely) that they might be willing to sell them through their retail operation, but there is no way they would be in keeping with the spirit of their live auctions.

If you are interested in an auction, it looks like Wine Bid "makes a market" in Marilyn Merlot.

http://www.winebid.com/

Chicago Wine Company is another option. I've used them in the past, although it's been at least 10 years.

http://www.tcwc.com/

The Chicago Wine Company is a great place to use, but their seller's cost is pretty high to make up for not having any buyer's premium. Given that you're talking about a handful of bottles only, I would recommend using the board here or on Berserkers. The Cellar Tracker board may be another good option.

John Danza wrote:The Chicago Wine Company is a great place to use, but their seller's cost is pretty high to make up for not having any buyer's premium. Given that you're talking about a handful of bottles only, I would recommend using the board here or on Berserkers. The Cellar Tracker board may be another good option.

Well, we don't really do that here, although, now that you've posted, any interested buyers are welcome to PM you.

Thanks,

=R=
for the Moderators

ronnie_suburban wrote:

John Danza wrote:The Chicago Wine Company is a great place to use, but their seller's cost is pretty high to make up for not having any buyer's premium. Given that you're talking about a handful of bottles only, I would recommend using the board here or on Berserkers. The Cellar Tracker board may be another good option.

Well, we don't really do that here, although, now that you've posted, any interested buyers are welcome to PM you.

Thanks,

=R=
for the Moderators

I didn't know that Ronnie. I was mostly chiming in with someone else earlier who I thought suggested it here. No worries, I'm pretty much just a buyer these days!