I have been somewhat active in the auction market over the past two years. Despite not bidding on super high-end wines, I would prefer buying from an auction house that’s trustworthy and will be vigilant against fraud or questionable lots.
The question is straightforward - if you’re involved in the auction market, which business do you trust the most?
Big ass +1. They’ve always been professional with me. Their UI for online bidding should be the standard. Stating that, I think I’m gonna take a step back from auctions cuz of the Spectrum scandal. Even though I don’t play in the DRC, 1st Growth arena, that whole fiasco has given me the heebee jeebees about auctions in general. Better to buy direct and let em age in my cellar. Too bad, cuz it was a great way to back fill. I’m gonna have a very young cellar going forward.
Never spend a dollar at one but I worry about the how the wine is handled once people decide to sell it. I would never ship wine I wanted to sell in hot weather but auction houses get new shipments all the time, through out the year. How safe is that for the buyer?
After the whole Rudy fisaco many of the traditional ones have a big black-eye…
Did HDH or Chicago Wine Company ever sell for Rudy? Seems like neither have come up in connection with him. And, if not, I wonder why not (would be very interesting to know whether they said “no” or he never wanted to use a Chicago based house).
You’d want to know the shipping conditions. I know that some places will send refrigerated trucks for shipments from a city. Obviously, the issue then is 'was the refrigeration on all the time, even at night when t he trucker was sleeping?" etc, but it’s done because it’s cheap compared to the money they make off the sale of a truckload of wines.
Most auction houses I’ve dealt with ship by refrigerated truck throughout the year. I would also note that the big houses do not auction during the summer.
Most auction houses do business year round. HDH, for example, has auctions in both May and June. Acker has an auction in NY in May and Chicago in June.
This is the absolute least of the issues the buyer should be concerned about, IMNSHO. The brick and mortar auction houses take control of the shipping and are very, very careful. They are on the hook for any damage, and are used to transporting older, more fragile wine that is very valuable. HDH for example vets their truckers by concealing temperature recorders in the shipment from time to time, particularly for a trucking company that is new to them. Other houses may well do the same.
Perhaps a small consignment bound for Winebid, for example, would be shipped by the consignor, although I doubt even that as UPS and FedEx refuse to ship wine for private individuals. So Winebid normally issues the shipping labels to the small consignor, 2-day air if weather warrents it, and the consignor then packs the wine in styro shippers and drops off at UPS/FedEx. Regardless, what seller would save $15 or $20 or $30 per case and risk having their wine described as showing seepage or pushed corks? That would be insane. And any short-term heat exposure that would damage the wine would indeed push corks or cause seepage.
What happens to the wine once the seller decides to sell just is a non-issue, IMO. Far more prevelant is heat damage before the consignor ever took possession of the wine, or during his ownership if his storage was poor.
Eh. If you’re going to worry about whether a wine was ever treated less than pristinely, you don’t buy off the secondary market. At all. At some point if you want to backfill or buy wines that are not the current release you accept a risk that the wine wasn’t perfectly treated and smart buyers factor that into the price they pay. Hell, we do that even WITH wines that are new… do you KNOW how the bottles from Europe are treated before they end up in the store you buy from? No. You don’t.
I was merely addressing Craig’s actual question. For the record, Winebid will pay to ship the wine to them if you’re consigning $25k or more. Otherwise it’s on you. The question then is where the consignor is… For example, as warm as it is elsewhere, it’s 40-something in Seattle, so shipping down the coast now wouldn’t be an issue. Summer? Issue.