Wine Auction Houses and Reliability

Are wine auction houses reputable places to buy wine?

Surprisingly, wine auction houses are not any more reputable than street venders selling fake purses.  While auction houses go to great lengths to fend off counterfeits, they have no way of knowing the condition of the wine.  Anyone who finds a bottle of old Burgundy or Bordeaux red wine in their grandparents’ attic can go directly to a wine auction house and consign it through them as long as there is no clear evidence of the bottle being bad.  (I make an assumption here that the reader is aware that improperly stored wine goes bad quickly.)  This means no ullage, no bin soiled labels, and a cork in the correct position.  However these three conditions can not possibly tell if a bottle has been sitting in 90 degree heat for the last ten years despite popular opinion.  It isn’t unlikely that some one would clean a label, push down a protruding cork, or outright lie about past storage conditions in order to gain a few hundred dollars.  Auction houses have no way to know if this is happening with any potential consignment.

How do they fool the “expert” buyers/collectors?

Whether it is for an auction online or in a fancy restaurant, most auction houses say they put every bottle through a vigorous authentication process.  A company should certainly say this when selling bottles of wine for upwards of $500 to ensure the trust of their buyers.  They also have much to gain by passing every bottle whether it is good or not.  With an average commission of 21%, there is a lot of money to be gained and little reason to fail bad bottles even when the bottle in hand is in question.  The authenticators often work for the same company making the commission, so only the worst of the worst bottles fail inspection. 

Further, most people who buy old wines expect there to be some bad ones here or there, and wine auction houses take full advantage of this attitude.  Cork is to blame.  The inconsistency of cork gives wine auction houses the room they need to inspect and pass bad bottles of wine.  For example, if one is buying a case of wine from 1990, there is a possibility that a cork or two had a defect making those bottles no longer drinkable.  This gives the auction house good enough reason and plenty of wiggle room to pass everything and anything.  In the same auction that the hypothetical case of 1990 vintage wine was sold at, there may be other lots that have only single bottles in them.  If those bottles are bad, then the buyer is simply told that it must have been “corked.”  A corked wine is industry jargon for “undrinkable bottle.”

Also, there is only one way to know if wine is bad.  It is impossible to tell simply by looking at, inspecting, or magnifying, a bottle.  It has to be tasted.  Knowing this fact, auction houses simply say that once a buyer opens a bottle, that it can not be returned.  This makes the return policy practically useless to buyers.  Especially considering the auction house already has the money.

The buyers’ habits also work against them

The wine sold at auction is very expensive.  Some wine is old and ready to drink, and others are too young to drink.  A bottle of Bordeaux from 2005, for example, should not be opened for another 10-20 years, as the aging process takes that long in this specific vintage.  This is another aspect of buyers that auction houses take full advantage of when ever they can.  Wine collectors/buyers know what wines need to be cellared and for how long.  So say a case of 2005 Bordeaux is purchased this year, and the collector puts the case in the cellar for 10 years.  After the aging process is done and the collector wants to drink the wine purchased 10-20 years ago, what recourse could possibly be taken on a purchase from so long ago if one or all of the bottles are no good?  None.  Most auction houses also stipulate that buyers can only return bottles purchased in the last year.

Adding to this is the fact that a lot of the uber-rich buyers have consultants do their bidding for them while they are away on business or something of the like.  Most of the time, the uber-rich are uber-busy.  The same can be said about receiving the actual wine.  Most of the time the buyers aren’t around when the wine goes into their wine cellar and don’t get to see it until months or years later.  This adds to the confusion of where and when exactly the wine was purchased.

Where to buy then?

Wine On The Way is a trusted, reliable source for buying wine online.

Wine is sold in different places and fashions.  Obviously if one has had a pleasurable experience with buying from a certain contact, then by all means continue to trust it.  Wine retail stores are very trustworthy and often do not want to alienate clientele with harsh return policies or bogus inspections.  They want repeat customers to keep their business alive.  Wine auction houses are different in that they have thousands of expandable customers on email lists that they will never have to deal with face to face.  Buy from businesses that get their wines the old fashioned way, from distributers with solid reputations.  Did I mention that Wine On the Way get their wines from distributors?