Wine as an investment

Reading yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph I came across this article on wine as an investment. If you’re thinking about it I’d seriously urge you to have a read.

Despite being in the trade, I’d be extremely wary about putting much money in to wine solely for investment – it’s just too unpredictable. And unless you can afford to drink £50-100+ bottles of wine on a very regular basis, the idea of opening bottles if your investment goes south doesn’t really hold water.

One rarely sees the ‘dark side’ of wine investment but do beware – I’ve recently dealt with clients who’ve bought ‘portfolios’ for multiple hundreds of thousands of pounds – only to find they’re almost impossible to resell, even at 20% of their original purchase price. Add in storage charges of £12 a case per year and the results are even more painful.

So if you’re thinking of dabbling then pull a cork, pour a glass and ask yourself who’s going to buy your wine in the future and whether you really have an appetite for huge potential losses. It’s easy to see wine as an abstract concept but when you see a warehouse full of Chateau Latour 2010 one realises that in the end, someone’s got to want pay to drink it..!

Changes to Bid for Wine’s Terms and Conditions

Due to the increased volumes of wine we’re handling, it was necessary for Bid for Wine to take additional warehouse staff at the end of 2012 and we are now altering our storage offering to reflect this. Where storage of lots is required (or if delivery instructions have not been received within a week of a sale), wines will be transferred to a dedicated client account to enhance accountability and to allow us to store your wines in your name.

Unfortunately warehouse administration fees will necessitate the introduction of a small up-front ‘per lot’ charge of £2.00 for transfers to the client account. Storage will be charged at our current cost of 20p per week. We recognise that this will be unwelcome but hope that the very significant economies of scale that stem from shipping lots together will go some way to mitigating the impact.

A further change is the forthcoming introduction of a buyer’s premium of 15%+VAT on all consignment auctions (my dislike of these charges is on record but they are forced by commercial necessity!). Unwelcome as this change is likely to be it will allow us to fund substantial – and long overdue – improvements to the site over the coming year. Expect to see a new bidding interface (including the option to place bids on dozens of lots in a few clicks, rather than having to flick through numerous pages) as well as simplified invoices, listing tools and more. Please note that at present buyer’s premium will not apply to wines sold by ‘direct’ listings (i.e those bought from people listing and shipping their own wines), nor those purchased from ‘fixed price’ offers such as that for our Grand Cru Burgundy beating Torii Mor Oregon Pinot Noir.

The roadmap to an improved Bid for Wine site

As a footnote to this, and as with the majority of auctioneers, where Bid for Wine invoices are paid for by credit card or non-UK issued debit card, the additional processing cost (2.5%+VAT) will be added to invoices. Payment by debit card, BACS or cheque will continue to be free and we will of course carry on offering shipping and storage to set ourselves apart from the competition..! We hope that planned improvements to the user experience and an even greater range of wines on offer in 2013 will offset any disappointment the new charges may cause.

Our terms and conditions of business will shortly be updated to reflect these changes. These new terms will apply to our January Feature Auction.

Minimum Commission Charges on Consigned Lots

When we founded Bid for Wine in 2008, one of our key objectives was to provide a route to market for small parcels of old, rare or unusual wines which might not otherwise be available. Since then we’ve counted Soviet-era Moldovian wine, 1960s Pouilly Fuisse and 1880s claret amongst the items consigned to us for sale. Whilst our customers appreciate having the opportunity to purchase these wines, we often hear the comment that such lots are too small to make it cost effective to pay for shipping. From an operational point of view they present a challenge too as, once warehouse charges, time and administrative overheads are taken in to account they regularly cost us substantially more to sell than we actually take in commission.

From 1st September 2012 we will be introducing a minimum charge of £12+VAT on all lots consigned for sale to reflect the true costs involved in our offering these wines for sale. We expect that this will either encourage consignors to parcel up wines for sale rather than drip-feeding them in over a period of time or that where sellers are using Bid for Wine to thin their cellar we will see an increase in multiple bottle lots rather than single bottles. From a buyer’s point of view we hope this will give you access to more of the wines you want and in larger quantities.

Finally we should add that this change will not affect lots sold via the ‘direct’ listing route – only lots which are consigned for sale. We would however note that the point regarding the disproportionately high cost of shipping does apply to ‘direct’ listings. As such you are likely to find that your wines fetch a better price when offered in lots larger than just a single bottle.

The Live Sale – Catalogue Released!

We’ve just released the catalogue for our ‘Live Sale’ (27th June, 6.15 for 7pm, London & online) and it can be seen here.

We’ll be taking commission bids and pre-sale registrations via a special ‘Live Sale’ website by the end of the week – if you’d like us to let you know when this up and running, please email us and we’ll drop you a note.

Exciting News – our first physical auction

We’re very excited to announce that Bid for Wine will be holding our first live sale on 27th June in London. Bid for Wine has grown enormously over the past year and we thought that a physical auction accompanied by drinks and canapes would be a great way to celebrate with our customers.

The sale will be held at Bacchanalia TWS in the heart of the City. A pre-sale tasting will be conducted from 6.30pm with bidding commencing at 7pm. For those unable to attend in person, we will also be offering live online bidding as well as offering you the chance to place commission bids prior to the sale.

We will have some spectacular lots offered for sale including classic Burgundies from the likes of Jayer, Rousseau, Roumier, Dujac and Fourrier, some outstanding older Rhones from Guigal and Jaboulet (to include 1985 La Mouline), a fine selection of First Growths and other notable Cru Classe Bordeaux. Also under the hammer will be Champagnes including Krug, Cristal and Dom Perignon plus a host of interesting and unusual bin ends. Most of these will be available in small lots which makes the sale much more accessible.

For those who are looking for more regular drinking fare we’ll also be putting some excellent mature Australian lots under the hammer alongside some wines from Spain and the US. The provenance of all of these wines has been carefully researched and will be clearly listed in the catalogue. Despite the inherent costs in putting on this sale we have maintained our low seller’s commission and will be
charging a small buyer’s premium of just 5%.

A small selection of lots can be seen in the slideshow below. If you are interested in selling in this sale or future sales please feel to email us via valuations@bidforwine.co.uk.

UPDATE 31st May: We now have a detailed list of wines to be featured in the auction which can be seen here. We will be releasing the catalogue in the next week. If you’d like to receive it, please join our mailing list, follow us on Twitter or subscribe via the form to the right of this post.

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Some changes to our listings wizard

We will shortly be releasing a couple of small changes to our listings wizard for consigned lots to enhance the experience of using Bid for Wine both for buyers and sellers.

1. It will no longer be possible to add your own photographs to consignment auctions – instead Bid for Wine will arrange photography on your behalf. This allows us to ensure that auction images are of a high standard and useful to buyers.

2. Quite frequently it’s necessary for us to alter selling formats and pricing on consignment listings so as to ensure that wines will sell well or to permit their inclusion in one of our regular ‘Feature Auctions’. In such cases we contact sellers to discuss this prior to acting. Although this has been standard practice since 2008 we have now added a note to explicitly state that:

   ‘For consigned lots Bid for Wine may edit pricing and selling formats prior to your listing going live. You will be contacted if this is to be done.’

   

   We hope you’ll agree that these are useful amendments to the site.

Starting 10th April – Our ‘Easter’ Auction

Outstanding Easter Sale (commencing 10th April) features some superb wines from private collections which have been extremely well looked after, a wide selection of top notch wines that have lain untouched since purchase at The Wine Society and some very rare and highly sought after Australian Icons.

Highlights include several vintages of Chateau Lafite and Chateau Margaux, a range of mature Rhones from Guigal and Rostaing, pristine single bottle lots of all the First Growths, and a number of large format bottles from Torbreck that are incredibly hard to find. There are wines to suit all tastes and budgets in this sale, with lots from the 1940’s right through to the late 2000’s.

The majority of the lots have been in professional storage since release from the producer, either at London City Bond’s dedicated warehouse or at The Wine Society’s facility in Hertfordshire. Stock up for the summer with wines from Fox Creek, Henschke, Two hands, Kay Brothers, Penfolds, St Hallett and Elderton Estate, all with good bottle age.

Some rare Burgundies from Domaine de La Romanee Conti, Armand Rousseau, Vincent Giradin and Leflaive will all go under the hammer, along with some fine and rare champagnes from Dom Perignon, Bollinger, Pommery, Perrier Jouet and Charles Heidsieck.

Lots of Bordeaux for the collector. Alongside the first growths there are OWC lots of all sorts of Chateaux including Gruaud Larose, Pichon Longueville, Grand Puy Lacoste and many others. We also have a good range of mature second wines including Forts de Latour, Bahans Haut Brion, Pavillon Rouge and Grange Neuve de Figeac.

Those with a sweeter tooth are also well catered for with some lovely Sauternes from Rieussec, Coutet, Bastor Lamontagne, and Guiraud alongside some excellent Tokaji.

All the lots – plus comprehensive images – can be seen here.