Wine Auctions Part One

Over the years I have experienced a number of trials, tribulations joys and sorrows when buying and selling wine at auction, so I thought I would share some of these experiences with you.

In theory wine auctions are a great idea if you are after some older or hard to get wines and they are equally as good if you have an excess of wine that you need to dispose of one day. However, it’s a case of both buyer and sellers beware because there are lots of traps!

In this journal I will outline some of the positives and negatives of a number of auction services and some of my own experiences, both good and bad.

Sold.com was the first service I used to buy some older wines. One of the main advantages of sold.com is the fact that you can contact the vendor and ask questions. On this site, many of the vendors are traditional bricks and mortar retailers that “discover” the site and hope to “get rich quick” buy moving a mountain of their overpriced inventory. Needless to say, many have tried this strategy and have listed hundreds of wines only to find that there are not as many mugs or easy targets as they may have hoped. These guys come and go with regular monotony.

The best vendors to look for are the private people who are looking to move excess personal inventory from their own cellars. When buying via this web site, it’s a good idea if contact the vendor and ask a few questions like “are you a private vendor, have you had the wine since release, what sort of cellaring facilities are used for your wine storage.” It’s amazing how frank and honest the private vendors are and this information will give you a better idea if the wine is worth a bid.

You also can see a vendors rating if they have auctioned previously. A word of caution, if they have any negative ratings, avoid them like the plague. Most buyers are very reluctant to give a negative rating so in most cases when there are negative ratings, the negative ratings have been deserved. There are some good deals to be found here but there are risks. In theory, you can send your money and never see the goods, but it’s amazing how rarely that happens.

I have had a few great buys via this site, but have also had one negative experience. I purchased a dozen bottles of 1991 and when I opened the box there were eleven bottles of 1991 and one bottle of a very inferior 1992 vintage. Despite numerous promises by the vendor that it was an honest mistake and that he would change it over and despite my threats of a negative rating, the matter was never resolved and I rated the vendor negatively as a result.

The biggest plus on Sold.com is the low commission charged to the vendor and no commission charged to the purchaser, but that advantage is offset by the disadvantage of having to arrange your own collection of the money and freight.

Another online auction site Deliverliquor located at www.bidnbuy.com.au/ is an interesting site. They run actions as and when they feel like it and have a fairly good range of wine from time to time. Like most of these sites they charge both the vendor and purchaser 11% commissions (including GST) for their services. Whilst Brett (the owner of the site) may not be the fastest in replying to emails and may not be as efficient as some people would like (me being one of them) he certainly does everything to try and ensure customer satisfaction.

Some time ago I purchased six bottles 91 of Michael Shiraz and when I opened the first bottle, it was obvious the wine had been stored poorly, despite Brett’s assurance prior to the sale that he knew the providence of the wine. Some weeks later when I was talking to him about an unrelated matter he happened to ask me if I had tried the wine. When I mentioned my disappointment Brett stated the person who had bought the other six-pack had found the same thing and he asked me to return the wine and offered a refund. He was adamant that he will look after his customers and not just buy and sell wine from any unknown source. Now that’s customer service way above the level expected with wine from auctions.

More of the good, the bad and the ugly side of wine auctions next week.

Cheers