hello all, i haven’t been a member for long so forgive me if this is featured in another thread. After following all the recent events with the Rudy Kurniawan trial I kept reading about “the cellar” and “the cellar II” auctions and thought it would be interesting to try and find the catalogs online, alas after much searching I can’t seem to find them anywhere and wondered if there was anyone on here who might know where they can be found.
thanks in advance.
I sent a message to Don Cornwell to see if he might be able to supply a link.
Welcome to the board, Leanne!
AMC used to mail them out to everyone who ever bid and I used to have one. I think I threw it out, but I will look. I bought a bottle of Quinta do Noval Nacional that was originally sold at that auction and then flipped - it had a “The Cellar” sticker on it. I drank it with Roy Hersh earlier this year. I think we both thought it was great. One of my best wines this year. Remember that not everythig, and probably not even close to everything, at the auction was counterfeit.
give a internet time machine,name is Way Back.
“Download catalog” and you can find every old catalog.(2006 was the year)
http://web.archive.org/web/20080515195117/http://www.ackerwines.com/Auctions.cfm
or you can see the begin from wineberserkers 
Wow, that’s really neat.
Yes, thanks very much for this.
I thought these had long since disappeared!
(hmm, funny about that!)
Shame though this version doesn’t have all the pictures…
I checked on Acker’s web site yesterday and noted that the Auction Archives area is still under development. It will be most interesting to see what they put in there. Wanna bet it will be selective?
I imagine the New York DA may have a few…
thanks for the link, would of liked to see the photos, conveniently the link seems to go nowhere when you click on “photos” i cant possibly think why that would happen…
Just was looking through the catalogs, I certainly wasn’t paying attention to DRC at auction at that point, so it’s interesting to go back through them…With current knowledge, reading JKs tasting notes on all the Cellar I and II wines is both sickening and hilarious at the same time…Rudy is mentioned intermittently in his DRC notes. “Fresh” and “young” also appear a lot in 20s, 30s and 40s DRC TNs ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
I’m sure this is nothing new to folks who followed this auction, but looking at the DRC lot descriptions, many just seem odd to me…to pick one random example from Cellar II:
2173
Romanée-Conti - Vintage 1962
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
1-4.5cm bc, 12lbsl, 12lscl,
embossed wax capsule,
outstanding color and condition
12 bottles per lot $90000-120000
The bolded line bothers me the most I think…are they really saying that just one single bottle in the whole case of 45 year old wine (at the time of the auction in '07) has any ullage?
They note multiple ullages on this 6 bottle lot earlier in the catalog:
2068
La Tâche - Vintage 1964
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
1-4.5cm bc, 2-5.5cm bc, 6lbsl, 2cuc, 2sdc, 1spc,
1 no monopole label, outstanding color
6 bottles per lot $7500-9500
Wouldn’t all the bottles in an age appropriate case all have age appropriate ullage, give or take a bit for cork variation/seals/whatever? I can certainly see how these auctions could have raised volumes of questions about where these wines came from…
Anyway, hindsight is 20/20, I know. We now know Rudy’s magic cellar really was magical, and unaffected by entropy. Or reality.
Ullage can differ by bottle in the same case but you wouldn’t expect that 11 out of 12 1962s would have in neck fills. Not that I would ever bid on this expensive lot, but to me that is a dead giveaway that something is wrong and it would be an easy pass for me.