How do I go about selling 500 or so bottles of wine?

WINE TALK
1

Tough to send 40-50 12 bottle shippers to winebid. Any easier means?

TIA,
Otto

2

Contact Winebid and Wine Commune and see what they offer. I’m reasonably certain they will assist in arranging pickup and shipping.

3

Otto,

Leave them in the original cardboard, place on pallet and saran wrap the hell out of it, just like the wineries do. Use a “transporter” type shipping company to move the wine. Remember, the Samsonite Gorilla loads trucks at UPS and FEDEX.

4

Are you selling any older bdx or Rhones? If so, pm me.

5

Randy, they’re already in the cellars. Most packages are gone.

Alan, I have just contacted buckley and see if they can have someone pack and ship.

6

Otto if you want, I can put you in contact with someone at winebid. They will send someone to pack and help ship. They use a refrig truck that’s pretty cheap. PM me if you want the info

7

Winebid is not cheap with vig on both seller and buyer sides but they are convenient and can usually fetch a decent price (although rarely above the reserve initially estimated).

8

A little off-topic, but unless these wines have big points from Parker, Meadows, or Tanzer [or unless they are from a very old house, like Palmer, which doesn’t always get big points, but which has a following independent of the critics], then the wines will NOT sell.

And there are entire regions - like Germany & Austria & Hungary & the Alsace - whose wines will NOT sell even if they do have big points.

And by “big” points, I mean 95-100 for Bordeaux & California & the Rhone, and maybe 92-100 for Burgundy.

In other words: You will have to drink all of your low-90s wines - they have no resale value whatsoever.

[EDIT: Maybe I should clarify these remarks - at some price point (possibly getting into negative territory, where you literally pay someone to take it away), anything will sell, but if the wine does not have big points, then you won’t be able to break even on the resale.

I.e. possessing wines with low (or no) points is the same thing as being “under water” on a mortgage…]

9

Nathan,

While it’s true certain segments of the auction wine market are soft such as Germany, Alsace etc, the broad statements you make are erroneous and bordering on ridiculous.

10

Most people buy at or close to retail (plus shipping or tax in many cases), and sell at basically wholesale after commissions. It’s a hard way to make money. Perhaps it’s time that we look at housing as a place to live and wine as a beverage, rather than investments.

But to Otto’s issue, that kind of quantity is best palletized and shipped via LTL (less than truckload) refrigerated truckers. The auction houses deal with it all the time. Finding boxes can be one of the hardest parts, but at least with a pallet and a refer truck, styrofoam isn’t required.

11

Agree. The wines will all sell, but unless Parker points are >95, or bidders are drunk and trying to impress their friends at a charity auction, then the wines will sell below their cost.

12

Nathyn, Errol -

Not sure why either of you think this. There are plenty of people who buy via auction who aren’t slavishly devoted to critics’ scores. Based on personal experience, I can say I had no problem selling around 1000 bottles in relatively short order (about six weeks) and many of them didn’t have high scores from any big-name critic or publication.

Also, Otto never stated that his goal was to make a huge profit. All he asked was about the best way to go about selling some wine. I’ve sold wine in the past for reasons other than profit - make room in the cellar, get rid of wine I didn’t like, etc.

13

I think that Nathan and I would both agree that anything will sell at some price, but speaking for myself, once you look at the total aquisition cost vs. net proceeds, unless a wine is a Parker 95+, I think that you lose money.

I am also puzzed lately at what seems to be a zero, or maybe even negative, premium on aged wines. Given wines of the same point score, it seems like the newer vintage sells for more money. If I had a some extra money and was starting a cellar, I would be stocking up on older California cabs and Pinots, Port, Chateauneuf du Pape (pre-1998 when the wines started to be made over ripe to please RP), and the regions pointed out by Nathan. Bordeaux and only the the five star Burgundy domaines seem to appreciate with age.

Hopefully for Otto’s sake, he doesn’t have too many recent vintage new world wines to sell, or he is going to take a bath. I understand that profit is not the only reason to sell, but no one likes losing money. I assume that Otto is not going to stop buying wine, so unless he is unloading bottles that he doesn’t like, he would be better off taking a buying hiatus, and drinking rather than selling those wines.

Otto, just trying to save you the hassle of shipping all those wines!
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