I dipped in and out of the Sotheby’s sale on Wednesday and it seemed that there were a fair number of passed lots and not a whole lot of interest above the pre-sale bids (aside from the usual trophy lots). Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention but it seemed to me that there wasn’t the same level of pent up demand there compared to what’s being reported here. Any thoughts on why that was?
My quick perusal of Sotheby’s (where they show the current pre-bid levels) were pretty strong leading into the auction. HDH doesn’t give you that indication, making all the pre-bids sealed, leaving bidders to either up their pre-bid or wait to see the open and decide whether or not to act in the few seconds allotted. I think the lots people are more used to seeing are falling in or close to the range (see the first 150 or so lots from yesterday) vs other, less frequently auctioned bottles whose prices are more all over the map.
A lot of the lots I was watching, when I had a chance to watch, involved the same few bidders. I don’t think this is boredom. I think these are “cellar advisors” or whatever filling orders for people.
That Produttori really jumped out, I was looking at those as well but gave up. When I checked the hammer today, I did a double take. I wanted those Stella di Campalto 2010s (and that was a case where the estimates were out-of-line with the market, but it is thinly traded and not a traditional blue chip).
Yeah the Stella estimates made no sense, below original release price.
Another fun one. 2010 cavallotto riserva San guiseppe. A case went for 180/bottle, certainly a bit high but not nutty. Then 4 bottles with label issues went for 225/bottle. Huh? Did someone misread and think they were getting 6?
HDH certainly did better than Sotheby’s this week at generating interest. As far as provenance, they’ve mentioned a few times the wines would be purchased distributor direct or via the owner’s personal connections in Italy. All I know is that the maestro of fake wine (Don) has given HDH his stamp of approval for their vetting process. Good enough for me, as other than having picked up a bottle myself at a winery, I don’t know how else you’d verify a bottle…
Still waiting for prices to get sane, although as usual the later it gets, the pricing tends to ease up. I’ve gotten one lot so far, paid the top of my limit. Back to monitoring a few more lots.
Have gotten a few cases of Barolo (couple lots later last night) for solid pricing. I was working this morning and told my assistant to win the '85 Sassicaia for me as long as the pricing was reasonable – obviously she and I have a different interpretation of what constitutes a “reasonable” amount of my money, but I’ll pretend to be upset while I tell the wife, I guess and enjoy the wine
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