After having some really good success(luck) with the bottles that I have purchased and opened from WineBid in the past, I have finally seen the ugly side. I had a good run for a while so I continued purchasing through them, but that will now probably be changing.
I am now 4 bottles in a row of flawed/cooked wine.
And I guess to be fair I did open up a bottle of 2007 Bertheau Amourouses which was actually purchased through KL Wines, but had a WineBid sticker on it.
It was fabulous, so technically there was one great WineBid/KL wine that was in the mix.
Burgundy is ever a casino…bla…bla bla…
Sure not, for people with passion and really interest is burgundy a holy grail…(maybe is a little bit with wink)
Think my “experience” with good-really good Burgundy is more than 90%.
For all “others”(wink) gives bordeaux(oh,oh i must buy 2015 Canon “all” said is so good), spain or so.
Don’t bother telling Winebid. They don’t care. Every time I mentioned anything like this, being extremely clear that I was asking for nothing and just wanted them to know in the case of problem consignors, they got extremely defensive and even a little bit rude at times. No more for me.
winebid is more defensive than any business or individual that I’ve ever encountered. not necessarily bad customer service, but just an attitude like they aren’t making $ and they are such saints for what they do.
I’ve had terrific success with WineBid purchased bottles. They can be really and strangely touchy about complaints, but overall I’m quite satisfied. Of course, the prices are not nearly as compelling as they were 4-6 years ago, but that’s the market in general.
I have had fairly good luck overall. But I’ve largely sourced relatively inexpensive bottles or old bottles in fair condition where I was well aware I was taking a serious gamble and had low expectations.
But I’ve also had a run of something like 30% rate oxidized, cooked or corked. I don’t blame WineBid.
Ive had nothing but bad luck with single bottle purchases from all sorts of auction sites including reputable ones, overall probably a 50% failure rate.
Its just not worth the hassle anymore, i would buy cases from a reputable auction house but no longer interested in single bottles, you might just as well play Powerball with the money
Interesting. I’ve bought a significant quantity of single bottles from WineBid over the last 4-5 years. Mostly Italian and CA reds, the vast majority <15 years old. My rate of flawed bottles from them is well under 10%.
Haven’t bought much from WB in recent years, but have a fair number
I have a higher rate of cooked wines at WB than I do at B&M auction houses, but probably more like 5-8%. Maybe if I add “more advanced than expected” it’s more like 12-16%.
I generally bid accordingly, I’ll bid one or two increments less on WB than a traditional house.
But I generally only bid at WBid on fairly pedestrian wines. I’d be especially wary of Roumier, Truchot, Rousseau, DRC, '82/'86 Mouton, '61 Palmer, '78/'85/'89 Giacosa/Mascarello (either), '74 Marthas, etc. I personally would assume anything like that sold through WB was because a B&M rejected (unless a one bottle consignment)
I generally try not to bring WB bottles to verticals/horizontals as I figure higher possibility of compromised bottle
Agreed with DaleW – my view of winebid is that their stock has a higher chance of being items other auction houses would not accept.
I have a lot of love for K&L, having used them for two decades, and because siblings live near them, they’re particularly useful for me…but I maintain circumspection around the older offerings. My view is that they ask a full & fair price in the “old & rare” category, but don’t always have an intake/inspection process that reflects that. To repeat, I do buy older bottles, and (ocassionally) participate in auctions, but I don’t have the same trust in them, unlike Benchmark or HDH.
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Tonight we got lucky with a gorgeous bottle of 79 Barolo paired with a butternut squash & sausage risotto. It took 2 hours to pull together but wow.