He has a heap of Kalleskes Nefertiti, around 200 - 300 bottles I think and a heap of another Kalleske Shiraz. Any ideas helpful. I though of an auction house or similar. Might even sell a few dozen through ebay. Should be nice drops.

TORB Responds

You need to be careful about this. Many of the investors are starting to get their wine and if everyone starts to sell via auction, the auction market will be choked with excessive inventory, and that will result in very low prices. To make matters worse, many of the investors have the same brands. I suggest that your brother:-

a. Sees if any friends etc are prepared to do a swap of say a dozen bottles of wine from their cellar (or even new purchases) for your brother's wine. Value discrepancies could be adjusted by changing the number of bottles, e.g. 12 for 9 etc.

b. See if he can contact any other Heritage investors who may also be interested in swapping.

c. Auction is an alternative but they cost the vendor between about 5% and $13.5%.

d. You need a liquor license to sell on ebay, so that is not an option.

 

From Jeff Pitts who lives in Bunbury WA

This is not really a question but I am posting Jeff's comments and my answers as readers may find them interesting.

I'm more or less your vintage, live in WA and have been a keen follower of your writings for some years now - I thoroughly enjoy your content and style. However, you cranked me up last night when I read your comments on Ashbrook Estate in Margaret River - Chapter 3. I refer to the following:

"After we walked out from Ashbrook, Davo said, “She had absolutely no idea what she was talking about but you have to admire the 110% confident manner in which she expressed her opinions.” Very true, she was a real character and a delightful person who would have little
trouble selling Bibles to the Gideons."

Now, I visit Ashbrook a couple of times a year, ostensibly to buy their semillon, whereas my wife knows that it's just to visit the young lady you've mentioned. As you've rightly explained, she is a honey and has, over the past 8 or 10 years, moved from label licker to running the cellar door and whatever else is thrown at her. She is a real asset to the business.

My point is this! Think it if it makes you feel good, but why write such a deprecating remark about someone who is so good with customers and who is so keen to increase her skills? How do you think she'd feel if she read your comment? Inspired to welcome the next group of wine aficionados? I think not! What she'd be excused for thinking is that you're a patronising prick, although she wouldn't think it because she's too polite. I'm not though. Rick, you often complain about the poor quality of cellar door staff you encounter on your travels and I've felt the same about some that I've met. But having come across "a vivacious and lovely young lady who was bubblier than a bottle of Bollinger", but who, in your opinion, doesn't know as much about wine tasting as you and your mates is not a reason to publicly lampoon her in an article which will be read nationally. I think you owe her (and your readers ) an apology and should edit the article accordingly! I'll wait to see if you've got the cohunas. I feel better now.

I'll still look forward to your articles.

TORB Responds: Firstly, if you feel that strongly about it; I am happy to post your comments on my site.
Secondly, the vast majority of what I said was very complimentary.

I don't remember the exact exchanges that took place but at more than one point comments were made of a fairly basic nature about wine. I am not talking about stuff that needs advanced wine knowledge to understand, it was something that you would expect anyone who had a basic understanding of wine to have, and she had no idea what we were talking about. It happened not once, but twice and judging by what she was telling us after that, it was clear she really didn’t have much idea.

Now here is the important bit. Whose fault is that? It's certainly not her fault; as in all these cases and there are far too many of them, it is the very poor management of the winery that is not even providing rudimentary training for their staff.

It's exactly the same problem as staff who check a bottle of wine, pronounce it fit and its rank with cork taint and then pour it. On many occasions, in tour diaries and in articles, I have had serious shots at winery management (in general) about the lack of training for their staff. And for the record, I will be aiming both barrels of a shot gun at winery management (in the final chapter) about a number of things, and this is one of them.

Wineries are businesses; employing staff to man the cellar door that are family, neighbours, friends or people that have stuck labels on bottles is fine but they should receive some wine education. If you had a jewellery shop would you get your bubbly sister-in-law who can't tell the difference between a diamond and a piece of pretty glass to serve your valuable customer?

I make absolute no apology for my comments; it is just as valid to criticise a cellar door staff member for not knowing what they are talking about as it to say that a winemaker is making wine that is poor. An apology would be due if I had made a negative comment that was personal, but the comment was not attacking the cellar door staffer. It was criticizing their professional ability to do their job. And finally let me repeat, it is probably not their fault, it is usually the fault of their employer, who has the responsibility to train their staff so that they can do the job at a reasonable level.
 

From Ben Allen

TORB Responds: The three scribes you have used are an interesting combination and here is my take on the situation.

When it comes to assessing drinking windows, there is no substitute for experience. Tyson has not been drinking wine for terribly long and whilst he is unbelievably enthusiastic and may have a good palate, he doesn’t have a huge depth of experience.

Campbell is a mate of mine and I really like the guy; he is a journalist by training who loves wine and has only been seriously getting into it not all that much longer than Tyson, but he is doing it full-time and has been doing so for a number of years. From what I have been able to see, Campbell has a better palate than Tyson, and probably knows more about tasting wine, but relatively speaking he still does not have a huge depth of experience.

For quite some time, I thought Jeremy Oliver’s drinking windows were ridiculously long but the more I look at them, the more I agree with them. That does not necessarily mean he will always get them right, but in the main, I think he is pretty accurate.

As to why you have found so many oxidised and fruitless, I’m willing to bet that in many of these cases a number of things may be contributing, including cork taint, leaky corks, or less than ideal storage conditions (and those poor storage conditions may be before you buy the wine; but that's another story.) If your cellar is not air-conditioned, or if passive with anything but minimal daily temperature fluctuations; your wine is going to mature much faster than optimal cellaring conditions.

If you would have compared Halliday’s drinking windows to Oliver’s and used that as your example, my answer would have been, whilst Halliday has a huge amount of experience, (unfortunately) he looks at so many wines in a year that in a lot of cases, not much time is devoted to each wine. It is for that reason, that I believe Oliver to be more accurate than Halliday.