Yep, if you want the bottle…unfortunately you have to be prepared to go to battle sometimes, ha!.
*sigh…i miss the good old WB days pre-OT-bidding
1 Like
You guys just like being able to snipe without someone sniping back lol
1 Like
Swooping in at the last minute to clean out the entire stock without a competing bid was admittedly pretty awesome
3 Likes
I have to admit I have a hard time with Winebid, because to me the prices are pretty much fair retail and then they add premium and tax and shipping which can be 30% or more. “Removed from an underground cellar” or “passive cellar” tells nothing about it being cold. In the old days, sellers (auction houses, retailers) vetted their cellar offers much more carefully. Today, any bottle stored above a waiter station or in a window display is treated the same. On Winebid, they often have good looking bottles followed by identical ones with seepage, stained labels, lower fills, etc. but somehow at the same price. RE: Sauternes comment above, I see way too many way too dark bottles that are not going to show, shall we say, “their best.” Rieussec can be dark but not black. Other wines from the 60s and later should not be caramel colored. This indicates poor storage, and the same would be true of the reds and whites stored with them. And the ports…don’t get me started. I poured out a half case of '77 Gould Campbell from Winebid…each one watery and dead.
1 Like
I’ll add that I have had good and an occasional great bottle from Winebid, and I still buy a bottle or two, but it’s very much hit and miss.
1 Like
It really, really was, ha! 
.
It was our reward for all the HW & patience displayed until just the right moment 
2 Likes
You have to be selective with Sauternes on Winebid, but sometimes there are deals.
That 1969 Yquem was $300 and was a showstopper. I’ve gotten 1967 Yquem from them for half of other auction that has excellent fill and color as well, and bought some pristine bottles of 01.
3 Likes
You are right of course! I’ve heard great things about the '69 from Francois, and it’s always a good idea to pick up 2001s at a good price. I’ve just seen a lot of ugly bottles everywhere (not just Winebid) and I guess I’m just thankful the bottles are clear so we can get some measure of the condition from the color of the wine…
It all depends on what is available at reasonable prices and what I like. I have purchased close to current releases and things that were 30-40 years old. I recently opened '85 Kenwood Artist Cab, '94 Tenuta Monolo Bramaterra and '96 Alquier Faugeres. All were purchased from Winebid last year and all were in excellent shape, even tasting fresher than I expected.
5 Likes
You can still get that rush with KL last-second bidding (for now).
Perfected on eBay for years (before ensipe).
1 Like
“Removed from xxxx storage” is meaningless to me because it tells me nothing about how the wine was stored prior to its recent removal. For all I know it could have been stored in the trunk of a car until a week before being sent to the auction house.
My absolute no-bid red flags are signs of past seepage and a fill lower than than what I see in my own well-stored bottles of similar age. Or in the case of a Sauternes a significantly darker fill than what I see in my own bottles.
1 Like
Port is by far the most mistreated wine on the secondary market because for decades many Americans thought fortified wine could be treated like liquor instead of wine and didn’t bother with proper cellar conditions. As for all the other stuff, you just need to develop a nose for sniffing out low risks and high risks - I think the average Berserker manages it pretty well.
3 Likes
How would they be in a position to make any verifiable representations about what happened before they took possession? No auction house does that. But common sense says that anyone who’s invested in a wine cellar cares about wine storage, so removal from an active cellar is obviously a positive indicator.
2 Likes
I was under the impression that the level of darkness with Sauternes is not an indicator of quality.
True, that’s potentially better than passive storage. I say potentially because older bottles may have changed hands prior to the current sale, and there is often no way to know how it’s been treated by previous owners.
That’s why I consider “removed from a 55 degree cellar” meaningless, at least for older bottles, unless it also says it’s been there since release or the consigner is the original owner. Absent that, it’s not a negative, but not reassuring either.
I see people saying that, but I’ve never had a bright golden bottle that tasted properly advanced, nor have I had a darker bottle that tasted young and bright.
Winebid is already struggling for me today. Seems like a repeat of last week, but starting way earlier in the day.
2 Likes
I can’t get on the site lol. I actually bid on something yesterday too