The time in life to downsize has come and my cellar has become an issue. At approx. 1000 bottles now, I’d like to get to 250ish. I’ve opened the cellar to be picked over by friends and I expect I’ll be left with about 750+ when that process is done.
So how do I sell those 500 bottles? My cellar is predominantly Bordeaux and Barolo and from 1998-2005. I have some full cases - 2000 Pichon Baron, 2005 Pape Clement, 1998 and 2000 Cheval Blanc for example. Most of what remains are singles or doubles. For example 2 2000 Pavie, 2 2003 Lafites, an 89 Pichon Baron and Montrose, 1 02 Latour and Mouton. The Barolos include bottles from two trips to the Piedmont - 04 and 06 Bartolo Moscarellos; 3 vintages of Monprivato etc. From California I have a couple of cases of SQNs - Syrah and Grenache (sold the extended agers)- from my mailing list days. A few cali cabs 01, 02 Insignia, a few Merus and Switchbacks and you get the general feel for the cellar.
I doubt Hart Davis Hart (I’m in the Midwest) would be interested. I really don’t want to spend the time and energy to put up 1-4 bottle lots on an auction site, get paid and ship 50-100 times. In a perfect world one person would step up and say I’ll take everything but I doubt that will happen.
Other than buy a bigger wine cabinet for the new place, what’s the solution? I’d like to have the cellar issue resolved in 3 months.
Don’t discount the auction houses. I’d reach out to them with an inventory of what you want to sell and see what they say. Based on what you’ve listed, I suspect places like WineBid, Heritage, HDH and others would be interested.
If you have everything in CellarTracker the new feature to export directly to Benchmark is pretty handy. It will create a spreadsheet that could be sent to other potential buyers as well.
Yeah, I would agree with what Scott said, especially considering the fact that you have some high end stuff like the Bartolo, Monprivato and SQNs, I’m sure someone like HDH would have an interest. And if you’re local, they might even arrange to pick the collection up for you - all you’ll need to do is box it up.
Chambers Street Wines offers a lot of wines from cellars, often in single-bottle lots. They just sent out an e-mail today with odds and ends from someone’s cellar. In very few cases was there more than one bottle, from what I could tell. They regularly bring in cellar wines from Europe, so I’d guess they could deal with wines in the Midwest.
I suspect other stores here such as Crush and Flatiron might also be interested.
I’d be shocked if the big auction houses weren’t absolute salivating to take your cellar, or at least a lot of it. I’d try HDH, and Zachy’s first, then K&L, Winebid, and Acker. So easy to send your spreadsheet and get a proposal. Heritage and others are out there but the ones I mentioned are the top tier.
My strong intuition is that, for the kinds of wine you mention, you’d get best $$ from the top tier auction houses. Restaurants & retail are going to be lower. That’s my experience with admittedly very few data points.
By the way, for a cellar of hundreds of sellable bottles, they will possibly come to your cellar, pack and remove the bottles. Ask!
I know someone who sold a collection of similar quality labels, albeit in slightly larger quantity, on Winebid - they were able to negotiate down the AH cut given the size and quality.
I just did this. I downsized from about 1,000 bottles to under 450. I sent my list of available wines to 8 different companies that offer to “buy cellars,” including Vinfolio, K&L, Cellarraiders, and Benchmark. Each offers different options, everything from an outright buyout to auction style (manged by them) to a consignment scenario. Some provide a total offer without itemizing bottles, others itemized the bottles, but all provided a total, or in the auction scenarios an expected min and max value. In the end I chose a buyout scenario and took a lump sum. The vendor I chose (Benchmark) sent me shipping boxes and paid for shipping and I received a check 5 days after they confirmed inventory. They did not itemize the bottles in the offer but it was super easy and quite fair. I keep close tabs on my cellar value and the offer from Benchmark was at the top end of the value of what I sold.
Edit: For comparison sake, I sold off mostly CdP, Spanish Reds, CA Pinot, CA Rhone, CA Zin, and CA Chard.
I agree. The high end wines will certainly be of interest for auction, but it seems like they also buy outright for resale, which is more likely for lesser bottles. I’m not familiar with the details for HDH but this is certainly the case at K&L - they will auction a part of the collection and offer you cash for the rest.
The part that is sold outright will not be at a great price - perhaps 60% of what they’ll sell it for, but it is probably fair compared to other realistic options.
I sold six cases of a variety of wines using this method and Benchmark. I’d do it again. I am also nearby K&L and I’d use them too, although I haven’t yet.
I put about 250 bottles out on consignment with Flickenger. They took everything, ranging from $250 bottles down to $25 bottles. After 6 mo most is sold
Easy process and prices seem decent.
If I had unicorn bottles to sell (Burgundy, etc. - I do have some Burgundy unicorns but holding on to those to drink someday) I may try an auction but otherwise this seems like good option
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