Putting aside for the purposes of this thought experiment the legal question surrounding private individual sales or trades of alcohol-containing beverage, what is the right way to value a bottle of wine from a Berserker’s cellar which is up for sale?
Some would say it’s clear that it should be some discount to the lowest wine searcher price.
I know this is been discussed elsewhere that the capital requirements of developing a retail business and the purported legal protections from buying from a legal business (real but not 100% - see Premier Cru) dictate that any private seller valuation should de facto be less than retail price.
But is that actually the case? From some perspectives, it seems clear that berserkers take much better care of their wine, then even some of the best retail outlets.
What are your thoughts? I expect there could be a wide range of responses.
Please note, this is not related to any listing currently present here, but more of a general thought which has been percolating in my head for many years.
you bring up an interesting paradox that manifests itself in several ways on this board, which i believe is a result of general entitlement. but that’s not the best word because it has a negative connotation, which i don’t intend. maybe it’s just a byproduct of a very insular, non-representative community that has a specific culture.
as you note, WB cellars will likely have top 1% provenance compared to retail or auction, yet it’s completely expected and normal for a commerce corner wine to exchange at a discount to prevailing market. that doesn’t make sense, but it’s normalized.
There are so many factors that drive it. At the end of the day the transaction should take place at fair market value. But it gets complicated:
What is fair market value: for many older vintages in particular WSP low is a not a good indication of FMV. For wines with high liquidity in auction market, that can be a good indication
FMV for buyer vs seller - if you take auction market as an example, spread between what buyer pays and what seller gets can be as much as 30%-35%
I feel finding a half way point between seller’s net realized price in auction and buyer’s price including premium allows everyone to feel good.
And that’s a case where someone might be willing to pay more for something older that they really want because of the known provenance. And where a seller might think his wines are more valuable than “market price” and ask a higher price.
But in general auction price is a good place to start, but you have to make sure you have the correct auction pricing. In a fast moving market (up or down), the CT values are often too low or too high from actual auction pricing. I think in a theoretical world, if a CC transaction happens at the amount that wine would have hammered today, everyone wins. Buyer takes more risk, but doesn’t have to pay premium and seller doesn’t have to pay any fees or wait to get paid or deal with the hassles of the auction house.
I think it also depends on where the buyer is located and who and where the seller is. Often times the WS Low seller is an old fashioned brick and mortar liquor & wine store that just can’t or won’t ship, those prices are meaningless. Same with a buyer located in a non alcohol friendly state. 2 years ago I found a store in Colorado that sold 2018 Maybach Materiums for $175. I called and was told she had about 10 bottles left but she just don’t ship. I exhausted all my resources to find any friend or family in Colorado who would get them for me. 10 bottles was not quite enough for me to make a trip. There’s also this Pennsylvania Liquor Control thing that sometimes makes me wanna move to PA with their prices.
By the way, off topic, can anyone tell me what the heck is CaskCartel?
i grew up in philly and got a ton of great deals over the years, but generally storage and selection are abysmal. for many years, the SLO route was fantastic for things like Krug magnums, roumier, dujac, drc, leroy, and just massive amounts of back vintage salon for pennies.
But i’ll never forget the sight of cases of leaking petrus in ardmore and so many other crimes against humanity.
When you’re looking at comparing wine from the private market vs retail in particular, there’s a big difference between something that’s been sourced via the direct 3 tier system vs something that the retailer sourced from the secondary market.
In the case of the former, I know that it came from the distributor who got it from the importer (foreign) or the producer (domestic) and there’s an established chain of custody and infrastructure in place to handle the bottle(s) with due care. There’s really no more ideal provenance other than personally pulling it from the producer’s cellars.
OTOH, if a retailer sourced it from the private market, I really don’t know what the retailer’s standards are when it comes to purchasing wine from private sellers. And even if they’re strong, the individual they bought it from may not have high standards (and so on and so forth).
So I may well value a WB’ers wine higher than a bottle available at retail if that member is a trusted community member here and says, for instance, “I purchased this bottle on release from a retailer with a direct allocation and it’s been stored professionally since then.” That’s worth far more than a bottle of unknown provenance just because it’s from a retailer (even a trusted one, IMO).
Everything, is only worth what someone will pay. There are very few wines that will fetch +WS pricing. 90% of all wine these days, is mostly -20%
It is what it is
So there is no hard and fast rule of the “right” deal. People have preferences and the market will or will not protect certain brands.
Most folks OVER VALUE their possessions, and ultimately make no head way in sales. As a Bourbon, Wine, and Video Game collector, those markets were inflated and are correcting…some at a much slower pace than others
Can’t return the wine if corked or otherwise flawed
Significantly more effort to make the transaction than a commercial retail purchase or an auction on a major auction site
More risk of getting left empty handed. Even without active fraud, the seller could die, go to jail, become hospitalized, go broke etc. before sending the wines. Those things are extremely rare on CC, but it’s more risk than ordering the wine from K&L or Hi Time or from the winery.
The bargain usually drives the purchase — i.e. since the selection on WB is so small and random, you’re usually motivated by the more favorable pricing. You can’t think “I want to buy 2010 Chateaux X and so I’ll go on Commerce Corner to look for it.” Instead, you look around CC and think “hmm, that’s a wine I might like to have if the pricing seems like an especially good deal.”
Concern that the seller is selling the wines because he or she has had the wine and it wasn’t that good. Which isn’t wrong or unethical (every wine has some people who like it and don’t like it), but when you see 2007 Domaine X listed, you figure there’s a pretty good chance the seller had multiple bottles, tried one, and it wasn’t that great. That’s much less of an issue with large production wines where you see lots of critic and CT reviews (e.g. someone is selling a classified growth Bordeaux).
At the end of the day, it’s not really right or wrong, just what does it take to find a willing buyer and willing seller at the same price and conditions. It seems to make sense to me that the pricing on here falls somewhere in between (1) what it would cost for a buyer to purchase at retail or major auction site and (2) what the seller could get by selling the wine through the auction house. Each side is a little better off, and that makes it worth overcoming the points I made above.