Was that the old Madeira lots? I found it entertaining to follow.
I won one lot early on Friday before people could wake up. I probably could have won a couple of others, but the prices were generally at or slightly below reliable retail sources, so I shrugged and moved on. Saturday was tougher to score anything.
I bought 2016 Ducru for $160 from HDH (retail) last month. Not OWC, so there is that.
One thing I noticed both this time and last month at the HDH auction is that prices of the newer vintages non-first growth Bordeaux are slipping, especially if they didn’t get 100 points.
Years ago I bought at HDH a box of 89 Lynch Bages over WS prices. My sole reason for going over was provenance.
so if the inverse occurs, current release wines from sought after producers selling at half of retail, is it safe to assume they fell off a truck somewhere or were otherwise neglected?
Auctions these days are putting their reserve prices so close to the retail prices (when you take fees into account) that I’m surprised when people pay much less than retail. I think we are due for a pretty significant drop in wine prices. Things seem pretty inflated given the string of great vintages, the resulting large supply of high quality wines, and the baby boomers all getting ready to sell off their cellars. Maybe all these crazy wine taxes on new imports will keep prices up there, without that I’d expect a big drop.
+1 on the last paragraph
Prices will collapse when the Global Fiat Usury Ponzi Scheme collapses.
Or when the Chinese finally figure out how to reverse-engineer the village of Vosne-Romanee using the terroir of Mongolia [on a very grandiose industrial scale].
especially if they didn’t get 100 points
99 is the new 89.
.
Well, to the OPs point, there was a lot of six bottles of 2008 DP. Widely available at retail for $150 per. The winning bid was $900, which is equal to retail with the exception of the 22% vig. The Legends editions went a good deal higher.
Another possibility is that Organized Crime is now using wine auctions to launder money, in the same way that they manipulate “Art” auctions.
Although the overhead on laundering money via something as heavy & fragile as wine bottles would be a very big obstacle to all but the most pig-headedly obstinate crooks.
Maybe wine auctions are still flying under the radar of the IRS & the FBI & the DEA, which makes wine worth the investment of all that sweat equity?
I dunno. Trying to launder money via wine would be downright excruciating [even if you were counterfeiting the wine].
Taking a paint brush, dipping it in a can of paint, splattering the paint all over a canvas, and charging $25,000,000 would require a helluva lot less in the way of sweat equity.
To broadly answer the question- provenance can have a huge impact. For older wines it can drive the price 30% higher than current market, sometimes more. While some provenance information is usually available in the catalogue, you can often get more if you call the auction house before the sale. They are not going to give out names or other details that could give away the consignor- but you can find out if they tasted through the collection, if there is evidence the lot was purchased at release etc. I very often pay a premium for ideal provenance and no regrets.
Being able to get a full case also matters- it certainly does to me. And it ties into provenance plus the issue of time and hassle. I am happy to pay extra to have a full case in one shot rather than accumulate a few bottles here and there.
Finally, remember that it is an auction. You just never know who is bidding who may not be price sensitive and just wants something. Sometimes it happens right in the auction room. This past Thursday at Acker, a six pack of 1996 Dom Rose hammered in the room at $3,200. I happened to have brought a bottle to the sale and opened it- sharing it with many in the room. The wine was on fire- it was just incredible. I have no idea how much of an effect it had for people to taste it real time in a perfect moment of its evolution- but I can tell you that 96 Dom Rose has been hammering in the $1,900-2,200 per 6 pack range pretty tightly for the past few months, and so I think it may have played a role. And given the provenance of the six pack plus the fact you could have 6 all at once, plus there are only 2 reasonably available US winesearcher results for bottles right now- $3,200 was not a crazy price to pay IMHO.
Saw a retailer send out a “private collection” email offer for a few of the wines I was bidding out on HDH – with the prices to match given the lots went for the high estimates…
Does the retailer have less auction fees because they are a business, versus say a consumer?
This happened frequently at the Christies auctions in Chicago in the late 80’s. Many of the newer wines could be had at Sam’s for much lower prices.
What does the SEC have to do with wine?
Unintended consequence of the tariffs on wine/champagne. My gut tells me the trade was very active in this and recent auctions.
Reminds me of what happened when 2005 Bordeaux/Burgundy were released at very high prices. Only difference back then is the retail community was sitting on large quantities of back/recent vintages.
If this follows the China model the tariffs could be here for awhile.
Like others have said, including Mark G who put it very well - one stop shopping. Or at least ease of shopping. At a recent whisky auction, we watched the entire vertical of Port Ellen releases go to the same buyer (I’m pretty sure) with the same under-bidder on most every lot. On some of those bottles, I could have gone out and found them easily at retail for significantly less. It was pretty clear the two bidders just wanted them now, preferably all of them.
One other reason may be the bidding app. I had several occasions where I bid via the app and other participants bid at approximately the same time (but just before me apparently), resulting in my bidding a couple of increments higher than I was willing to pay. On one occasion I actually ended up winning a case of 2014 Montrose for more than I wanted to pay and immediately called HDH. they put up a little fight, but eventually relented and put the lot back up for sale later the same day. HDH is indicating they are working on the software to help resolve this problem. I am very nervous to bid with the app b/c of this issue. Nevertheless, in Friday’s auction, I won a case of 2016 La Mondotte for $1500.
By chance, during the past month, Winebid posted a ton of older California reds at very good prices, some of which appear seldom at either retailers or auctions. Several cases have begun to travel to Noo Yawk, amid perfectly cold weather, while its shipping subsidies still apply.
What exactly transpired for you? Something like this happened to me once… I was swiping to bid and then the swipe came in higher than I intended… not sure how software would fix this? (I lost the auction).
The auditors of the fund would not allow this to happen. The first question an auditor would ask, is who set the market price that you’re using - if its you, then the market price is worthless.
