Have wine auction lots become much more scarce....?

[Markus_S]

The Covid-effect?

I know I’ve bought more than normal this year.

I would think that it is a large part of it. Higher consumption and more money being diverted from my traveling budget have increased my purchasing. Traveling vicariously with regional wine, food recipes, and travel documentaries have been our go to pandemic entertainment.

Winebid also seems more aggressive with their marketing on social media in the past year, so that might play a part.

Don’t forget ‘free’ $2000 checks from the Government every 6 months distorting prices as well!

[Corey_N]

The Covid-effect?

I know I’ve bought more than normal this year.

I think it’s very much the Covid effect, combined with a surging stock market. People feel flush with cash and they are “treating themselves” during a stressful time.

Personally, I miss buying from HdH retail even more than I miss auctions. For a while I was making a trip to HdH every 7-10 days.

[Alex_Valdes]

The Covid-effect?

I know I’ve bought more than normal this year.

I think it’s very much the Covid effect, combined with a surging stock market. People feel flush with cash and they are “treating themselves” during a stressful time.

Personally, I miss buying from HdH retail even more than I miss auctions. For a while I was making a trip to HdH every 7-10 days.

The data says otherwise - buying at auction is down relative to 2019 (I don’t think Wine Bid is included in the dataset but Zachys, HDH, Acker, Sothebys, Heritage, KL, etc are).

[Marcus_Montanile]

The Covid-effect?

I know I’ve bought more than normal this year.

I think it’s very much the Covid effect, combined with a surging stock market. People feel flush with cash and they are “treating themselves” during a stressful time.

Personally, I miss buying from HdH retail even more than I miss auctions. For a while I was making a trip to HdH every 7-10 days.

The data says otherwise - buying at auction is down relative to 2019 (I don’t think Wine Bid is included in the dataset but Zachys, HDH, Acker, Sothebys, Heritage, KL, etc are).

Is that price per bottle? quantity? total dollars spent?

[Alex_Valdes]

I think it’s very much the Covid effect, combined with a surging stock market. People feel flush with cash and they are “treating themselves” during a stressful time.

Personally, I miss buying from HdH retail even more than I miss auctions. For a while I was making a trip to HdH every 7-10 days.

The data says otherwise - buying at auction is down relative to 2019 (I don’t think Wine Bid is included in the dataset but Zachys, HDH, Acker, Sothebys, Heritage, KL, etc are).

Is that price per bottle? quantity? total dollars spent?

Total dollars spent.

[Corey_N]

The data says otherwise - buying at auction is down relative to 2019 (I don’t think Wine Bid is included in the dataset but Zachys, HDH, Acker, Sothebys, Heritage, KL, etc are).

Is that price per bottle? quantity? total dollars spent?

Total dollars spent.

But doesn’t that also depend on how many lots are put up for auction? Looking at a cost of goods sold doesn’t mean much without additional data points.

[Alex_Valdes]

Is that price per bottle? quantity? total dollars spent?

Total dollars spent.

But doesn’t that also depend on how many lots are put up for auction? Looking at a cost of goods sold doesn’t mean much without additional data points.

Yes agree. Given the data I’ve seen, lots for sale fell 11% and revenue fell 24%. Grant it, this specific dataset is limited to “live auctions” which does not include the weekly auctions that have grown a lot in this period (accounting for 20ish% of 2020 revenues) but still you can glean from the data (as well as bottle price indices) that what I am saying triangulates: prices haven’t moved much due to demand being, at best, flat to 2019.

[Marcus_Montanile]

Is that price per bottle? quantity? total dollars spent?

Total dollars spent.

But doesn’t that also depend on how many lots are put up for auction? Looking at a cost of goods sold doesn’t mean much without additional data points.

Agree here. Total dollars spent is down, but potential number of lots being down increases the competition for those lots, leading to the anecdotal experiences in this thread. For a while, KL only had 400-500 lots going while their usual is 750-800

[Alex_Valdes]

Total dollars spent.

But doesn’t that also depend on how many lots are put up for auction? Looking at a cost of goods sold doesn’t mean much without additional data points.

Agree here. Total dollars spent is down, but potential number of lots being down increases the competition for those lots, leading to the anecdotal experiences in this thread.

I answered this above.

[Alex_Valdes]

Total dollars spent.

But doesn’t that also depend on how many lots are put up for auction? Looking at a cost of goods sold doesn’t mean much without additional data points.

Agree here. Total dollars spent is down, but potential number of lots being down increases the competition for those lots, leading to the anecdotal experiences in this thread.

Of course, to do this accurately we would need to do this at a much finer grain (because lots could be differently sized, different levels of wine, etc). I do this analysis but for a much smaller set of wine (as it is more time consuming) - mainly blue chip Burgundy. My findings are broadly consistent with what I wrote above at the region level but there are divergences when you look deeper

[Victor_Hong]

…and expensive?

Geez…

Why, what are you looking for?

Cheap but good.

[Marcus_Montanile]

But doesn’t that also depend on how many lots are put up for auction? Looking at a cost of goods sold doesn’t mean much without additional data points.

Agree here. Total dollars spent is down, but potential number of lots being down increases the competition for those lots, leading to the anecdotal experiences in this thread.

Of course, to do this accurately we would need to do this at a much finer grain (because lots could be differently sized, different levels of wine, etc). I do this analysis but for a much smaller set of wine (as it is more time consuming) - mainly blue chip Burgundy. My findings are broadly consistent with what I wrote above at the region level but there are divergences when you look deeper

Fair, most of my experiences are looking for aged: California, less expensive burg/bordeaux, beaujolais, CdP because I havent been drinking long enough to have 90s/2000s wines. In these categories, it feels tougher now.

[Alex_Valdes]

Agree here. Total dollars spent is down, but potential number of lots being down increases the competition for those lots, leading to the anecdotal experiences in this thread.

Of course, to do this accurately we would need to do this at a much finer grain (because lots could be differently sized, different levels of wine, etc). I do this analysis but for a much smaller set of wine (as it is more time consuming) - mainly blue chip Burgundy. My findings are broadly consistent with what I wrote above at the region level but there are divergences when you look deeper

Fair, most of my experiences are looking for aged: California, less expensive burg/bordeaux, beaujolais, CdP because I havent been drinking long enough to have 90s/2000s wines. In these categories, it feels tougher now.

Makes sense. At a broad strokes level, CA wines have boomed this year (up about 20%), less expensive burg and Bordeaux have outperformed their higher priced brethren (2nd tier BDX and BURG outperforming their categories by at least 5%) and Rhone has had a good pop this year (about 8%) vs it’s 5 year avg of 2-3% per year.

All told, “cheaper” wine is up at auction this year and “expensive” wine is downish. This nets to overall modest gains year over year though if you are newer to auction or generally buy cheaper wine it will feel expensive.

[L_e_e_H_olland]

The Covid-effect?

I know I’ve bought more than normal this year.

I would think that it is a large part of it. Higher consumption and more money being diverted from my traveling budget have increased my purchasing. Traveling vicariously with regional wine, food recipes, and travel documentaries have been our go to pandemic entertainment.

Winebid also seems more aggressive with their marketing on social media in the past year, so that might play a part.

While aggregated Q4 data isn’t out yet (last I checked) auction buying is down in 2020 vs 2019.

Sure, that very well maybe true for the overall auction market. I remember Russ saying they had record traffic on Winebid this summer and had to beef up their servers. Not sure about number of bottles sold or dollars, but I would bet that is up this year as well. There is definitely increased buying competition.

That is not to say that you can’t get good wine at descent prices, but it is getting harder.

[Alex_Valdes]

I would think that it is a large part of it. Higher consumption and more money being diverted from my traveling budget have increased my purchasing. Traveling vicariously with regional wine, food recipes, and travel documentaries have been our go to pandemic entertainment.

Winebid also seems more aggressive with their marketing on social media in the past year, so that might play a part.

While aggregated Q4 data isn’t out yet (last I checked) auction buying is down in 2020 vs 2019.

Sure, that very well maybe true for the overall auction market. I remember Russ saying they had record traffic on Winebid this summer and had to beef up their servers. Not sure about number of bottles sold or dollars, but I would bet that is up this year as well. There is definitely increased buying competition.

That is not to say that you can’t get good wine at descent prices, but it is getting harder.

I believe Wine Bid represents about 5% of the wine auction market so, while an important player and helpful to understand the internet trend, the larger houses are a better barometer

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

No. They’re just dead at retail.

[T_Williams]

With Winebid I always wonder how many of us (Berserkers) are bidding against each other on any given Sunday night. I think the reality is that even though there are ~6000 wines on Winebid on any given week many of the lots are just noise for what “we” look for. Taking out the prestige bottles and the plonk - price range $30-$130 reduces bottles to ~3000. Further reducing the 3000 to delete current/recent vintages which you can reasonably get at retail whittles it down to 2000 bottles. Subtract the obscure regions, way over the hills bottles, bottles no one should drink (39 different Caymus (or is it Caymi?) bottles this week), and the ocean of wines for the discerning but value minded wine geek gets pretty small. All it takes are two or three of us looking for back vintage cru bojo to really send things sideways on getting a good deal. I think sometimes people misunderstand how big an impact just a few people can have on the entire perception of a marketplace.

Anyway…enough with the supposition and theoretical analysis. I will add to the thread to say that I feel like the pickin’s are slim lately too. I have only scored 11 bottles in the past year.

[Alex_Valdes]

With Winebid I always wonder how many of us (Berserkers) are bidding against each other on any given Sunday night. I think the reality is that even though there are ~6000 wines on Winebid on any given week many of the lots are just noise for what “we” look for. Taking out the prestige bottles and the plonk - price range $30-$130 reduces bottles to ~3000. Further reducing the 3000 to delete current/recent vintages which you can reasonably get at retail whittles it down to 2000 bottles. Subtract the obscure regions, way over the hills bottles, bottles no one should drink (39 different Caymus (or is it Caymi?) bottles this week), and the ocean of wines for the discerning but value minded wine geek gets pretty small. All it takes are two or three of us looking for back vintage cru bojo to really send things sideways on getting a good deal. I think sometimes people misunderstand how big an impact just a few people can have on the entire perception of a marketplace.

Anyway…enough with the supposition and theoretical analysis. I will add to the thread to say that I feel like the pickin’s are slim lately too. I have only scored 11 bottles in the past year.

I wish there was better data out there from places like wine bid and KL. I also wish they gave anonymized bidder data to do the analysis you are interested in.

[Michael_Martin]

With Winebid I always wonder how many of us (Berserkers) are bidding against each other on any given Sunday night. I think the reality is that even though there are ~6000 wines on Winebid on any given week many of the lots are just noise for what “we” look for. Taking out the prestige bottles and the plonk - price range $30-$130 reduces bottles to ~3000. Further reducing the 3000 to delete current/recent vintages which you can reasonably get at retail whittles it down to 2000 bottles. Subtract the obscure regions, way over the hills bottles, bottles no one should drink (39 different Caymus (or is it Caymi?) bottles this week), and the ocean of wines for the discerning but value minded wine geek gets pretty small. All it takes are two or three of us looking for back vintage cru bojo to really send things sideways on getting a good deal. I think sometimes people misunderstand how big an impact just a few people can have on the entire perception of a marketplace.

Anyway…enough with the supposition and theoretical analysis. I will add to the thread to say that I feel like the pickin’s are slim lately too. I have only scored 11 bottles in the past year.

Yep, the geek wines go quick and have multiple bids. Any board darlings with age i.e. Bedrock, etc, forgetaboutit.

[Ian_Dorin]

Total dollars spent.

But doesn’t that also depend on how many lots are put up for auction? Looking at a cost of goods sold doesn’t mean much without additional data points.

Yes agree. Given the data I’ve seen, lots for sale fell 11% and revenue fell 24%. Grant it, this specific dataset is limited to “live auctions” which does not include the weekly auctions that have grown a lot in this period (accounting for 20ish% of 2020 revenues) but still you can glean from the data (as well as bottle price indices) that what I am saying triangulates: prices haven’t moved much due to demand being, at best, flat to 2019.

Where is this data coming from?

We definitely saw prices go up across the board. Maybe we didn’t see as many “big ticket” lots as 2019, but I think it’s understandable that someone didn’t necessarily want to gamble with a 6 figure lot this year.