I don’t think I’ve run into that combination before, Paul, but your point’s valid.
My guess is those conditions are why those bottles are on WineBid- assuming other houses wouldnt take them. You would know better than I would though.
I am sure other auction houses would have taken them. There are also pristine bottles of other RC, some in OWC.
But what action house gives you such documentation? Perhaps some do for certain buyers considering some very expensive bottles, who won’t bid on the bottles otherwise, but as a matter of course, none that I know offer such documentation. This would include HDH, Acker, WB, Zachy’s and Spectrum…
If you contact the auction houses you can get more documentation on bottles you’re interested in bidding on (usually for more expensive bottles)
I don’t think that WB prices are lower than what you get from bigger auction houses. Haven’t done a rigorous study of it, but seems like what I pay on HDH, Acker, Spectrum, etc. is actually often lower than what it might be on WB…
When I sold wines there in the past, there was hardly a rigorous verification process. I don’t know if that has changed or not, but I told them how I stored my wines and it was like “ok, thanks.”
This just with WB?
Some of the others, e.g. HDH want to see more documentation, photos of the storage environment, etc.
Yeah winebid didn’t request any documentation, just asked how your wines were stored.
I think on high end wines there’s probably a good chance it’s stored properly. I generally doubt people are buying those things and treating them poorly. However, you really have no idea of knowing this or how it was acquired in the first place or what happened to it prior to that owner selling it on WB.
But like @MChang, I really don’t buy much past a certain age. Generally like to stick to newish vintages there as I think it helps cut down on the risk of improper storage for extended periods.
My guess is something like my cellar. It is in the basement, in a room on the northeast side, and sees no direct sunlight. Temperature fluctuation is less than 10 degrees over the course of a year, with no sudden spikes.
Or WB is trying to step up their game and offered the consignor a great deal on the spiv in order to work with them.
Why would Winebid be riskier than any other auction house? I don’t think they were the ones selling Rudy’s (and other) fakes, were they? People can lie to any auction house.
Winebid usually has good descriptions on the wines, and I stay away from anything that has leakage or signs of it. I have purchased over 1000 bottles from Winebid, going back over 25 years and can count on one hand the number of bottles that had even minor issues that were different from the description.
Maybe they think we’re all out here in CA surfing with cases of wine out open to the sun in the hot sand. ![]()
1000% this. I have bought…‘quite a bit’ of wine from WineBid over the past 15 years and i can’t think of a single bottle that was described incorrectly. I also take shots routinely on older wines and have had WAY more positive outcomes than not. Certainly as good or better than other auction houses. On top of that, their customer service is outstanding, which is something that i highly value/appreciate.
For some reason people like to hate on WB and seem to think of them as an inferior auction platform (maybe because they accept a wider range of bottles??), but all my experiences have been top notch (buying and selling). I still can’t stand overtime bidding, but it is what it is. Other than that, I’m a huge fan.
Not happy about last night (rare bottle I missed taking to overtime), but overall very satisfied with WB as a buyer and seller. More so than any other auction house.
I put in two bids early thankfully, but went to check on them and the site wouldn’t load. I was lucky and ended up getting the two wines I bid on. I’m glad the site got back up for you and you won!
Are most of the bottles you have bought on WB relatively newer vintages or have you regularly bought bottles going back, say, 10-15-20 years and still have had so few problems?
I laughed at Rich complaining about overtime bidding, and in the next post Colby lamenting he couldn’t put in an overtime bid ![]()
I mean, I hate it also, but for some bottles, you simply have no choice. You get a feel.
Either that or put in an absurdly high early bid and pay more than you might otherwise.