Yesterday lunchtime saw 14 of us gather in The Connaught’s sumptuous Coburg Bar for what promised to be an extraordinary lunch featuring 100 years of Champagne Pol Roger. The occasion was a celebration of three exciting new developments for Pol Roger (the launch of the 2000 vintage), The Connaught (a new Champagne list featuring vintage Pol back to 1914) and ourselves at Bid for Wine (our soon-to-launch Singapore site, about which more shortly!).

Proceeding kicked off with a glass of the 1999 Blanc de Blancs – a lovely soft gold with a fine mousse and elegant fresh nose loaded with white fruit, a gentle nuttiness and some minerality. In the mouth this was beautifully elegant and poised – the offer of a second glass was hard to refuse. Charles Hamer commented that in his view this is a long term wine and will probably come around a little later than the 1999 Vintage Brut. Jancis Robinson used the wine as an excuse to give James Simpson of Pol a masterclass on Twitter, much to the amusement of all present – for those minded to do so he can now be followed @pol_roger.

Having emptied our glasses of the 1999 we progressed through to the hotel’s private room for lunch itself. No sooner had we taken our seats when a beautiful Tartar of Scottish scallops, Caviar from Aquitaine and Brittany cauliflower veloute arrived to accompany the 2000, 1999, 1998 & 1996.

The 2000 was hugely mineral on the nose – very tight but showing hints of vanilla, fresh nuts and white fruits with time. The minerality continued on to the palate giving a fine backbone to this very elegant young Champagne (4*, 4.5* with time). Hugh Johnson noted how the cauliflower veloute (an incredibly subtle and beautifully textured component) seemed to help the 2000 to open up.

The 1999 (4.5*) seemed quite reductive at first and had a big toasty palate. My notes for this read ‘dense wine, chewy & vinous’.

Vintage 1998 (NR) possessed a distinct lactic/dairy note on pouring. This eventually blew off leaving some stone fruit and a green, elderflowery character. A poor bottle? Certainly unlike others Pols of this vintage that I’ve tried.

Pol Roger 1996 is a wine I’ve been lucky to drink a lot of and bought with great enthusiasm around 2005. I haven’t however tasted it since Christmas day 2007 so was looking forward to reacquainting myself. The nose was loaded with truffles, hints of apricot and a touch of fresh mushroom – really quite giving. In the mouth though this is still coiled up tight with a massive streak of acidity. I admire the structure of this wine but am wondering where it will go. Certainly it’s not a crime to open a bottle now to decide for yourself whether you will like this in its old age.

Following on from the flight of youngsters we were served 1995, 1990, 1989 and 1988 alongside a Ravioli of wild mushrooms, Aromatic herbs, lardo di Colonnata.

The 1995 was an interesting counterpoint to the acidity and intensity of the 1996 and came across as a more complete wine. The nose showed a touch of honey, some spice and white chocolate and in the mouth this was quite a dense, poised wine with great harmony between all the components. 4.5*

If the 1995 was a lesson in harmony, the 1990 came as a lesson in flamboyance with a very ripe, full and almost sweet nose. Semi-tropical, this wine came across as just a little too obvious, though one had to admire the freshness of the fruit after nearly 20 years. James Simpson noted that this vintage was unusual in not requiring any chapitalisation.

Sadly the 1989 was corked and/or slightly oxidised (some discussion around the table on exactly which) but the 1988 showed well. This possessed a creamy, slightly honied nose with a touch of biscuity oxidation. Very fine, round and satisfying wine – good balance.

Progressing on to a main course of Roasted pigeon “flambé au capuchin” (beautifully cooked – rare and tender), cromesquis of simmered pigeon, citrus confit turnips, spicy jus we were served the 1985 in jeroboam. This was the only format in which this wine could be located and an abject lesson in the benefits of larger formats. Light gold in colour and with wonderfully freshness and complexity. Very concentrated with notes of praline, patissiere and fresh cashew nuts. Continued to evolve in the glass taking on a distinct resemblance to a great white Burgundy. Interestingly this bottle was almost still.

Alongside  the 1985 came the 1982 – quite a delicate creamy, buttery wine with good freshness and finesse and  the 1979 (en Magnum). The latter did not seem entirely right at first but regained its composure after a few minutes to show a well balanced older Champagne with a very gentle mousse and a nose of baked apples and spice.

To round off the Champagne we tasted 1966, 1964 and 1900 – these were poured alongside a stunning dessert of Passionfruit crème brulee, light cream perfumed with green Maccha tea, roasted Chestnuts, chestnut jelly  but most of us chose to focus on our glasses first. The 1966 showed a remarkably youthful colour and had a lovely nose of crème brulee. In the mouth it was still fresh with good acidity and just the faintest hints of petillance. In contrast the 1964 possessed a delicate ‘old gold’ colour, some maderisation and was completely still. Upsettingly the 1900 was in very poor condition and resembled motor oil in both colour and smell – it was declared DOA.

The cheese course came alongside Joseph Drouhin’s Clos des Mouches Rouge 1990. Deep crimson in colour with a ruby rim the nose was utterly intoxicating – loaded with sour red cherries, a touch of gaminess, dried herbs and wonderful lift. Like most Drouhin wines I have tried there was a purity to the wine but also a powerful backbone of fine tannins and acidity to keep things in check.

The final wine of the afternoon was a private joke between myself and my guest and was presented blind to those guests who hadn’t been whisked off to Oddbins’ afternoon press tasting. It arrived looking suspiciously murky in colour and had a nose of fresh mushrooms. In the mouth it was still full and quite rich. It was clear that this had some serious age on it and guesses varied between the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th century. Simon Berry bravely declared that he thought it could be a 1945 and had got it smack on. The wine was in fact a 1945 Clos de La Roche bottled by The Wine Society and it seemed very appropriate that Marcel Orford-Williams (their current Burgundy buyer) was there to taste it.

Bid for Wine are pleased to unveil an entirely new way for people to sell wine with us – our revolutionary ‘broking list’ option.

The broking list option is an alternative to listing wines for auction. It allows you to set a price at which you are willing to sell your wine but gives the flexibility to negotiate or accept offers around this price.

The process works as follows:

1. You add your wines to our broking list via our selling wizard and set the price around which you’re happy to sell.

2. Wines can be bought immediately at the price asked or potential buyers can make offers. These offers can be accepted, rejected or met with a counter-offer – you only need sell if the asking price is met.

3. All offers from buyers are valid for 48 hours whilst Counter offers are valid for 48 hours or until the lot sells, whichever is sooner.

What are the benefits of this system?

-It is particularly well suited to selling more expensive wines lying in professional storage (these generally have a clear provenance and thus pricing is transparent). Such wines don’t always achieve their maximum potential at auction if buyers aren’t looking for the wine during the running period of the auction.

-It gives you absolute control over pricing – you can choose your price rather than being guided by merchants with a vested interest in setting low prices to achieve as quick a sale as possible.

-Wines can be sold where they are lying (saving you the cost of moving them around prior to sale).

-No need to sell unless your asking price is met – so you can list those wines you’ll probably never drink but aren’t actively looking to sell.

-There are no upfront fees whilst commission is charged at Bid for Wine’s usual low rates.

For example:

Selling Price: £200
Bid for Wine’s charges: £21.30
‘Standard’ broking commission of 15%: £30
You save: £8.70

Selling Price: £500
Bid for Wine’s charges: £47.18
‘Standard’ broking commission of 15%: £75
You save: £27.83

Selling Price: £1000
Bid for Wine’s charges: £90.30
‘Standard’ broking commission of 15%: £150
You save: £59.70

Further details:

• For Sellers
• For Buyers
• Try it now.

One of the challenges when listing rarer or older wines for sale is knowing how to price them. Bidders selling via our large volume consignment auction service are provided with a comprehensive list of estimates as part of the service but for odd bottles many users rely on Wine-Searcher. This can help but in truth many of the higher prices listed are an illusion as they’re from firms who will buy in the stock from other merchants when orders are placed and thus need to price high to ensure they can make a margin. Historical price data on Bid for Wine is a much better indication of the real market price as it reflects real transactions.

Until recently searching our back catalogue of historical prices was awkward as there was no way of ‘interrogating’ the site with a free-text search (e.g. Cape Mentelle Cabernet). From today though this has changed and now you can freely search over 1500 previous auctions in a more fluid, intelligent way via the ’search closed auctions’ box. This is the first of two important changes in this area – shortly we will also be unveiling a new, more flexible listing type which will help sellers establish the market prices for their wines even more accurately.

When we first started Bid for Wine, one of our aspirations was to offer people selling large collections of wine a real alternative to the costly and often slow process of using ‘bricks and mortar’ auction houses. We envisaged a situation where wines are sold in a matter of weeks rather than months, where 15% buyer’s premiums reducing the seller’s profit are thing of the past, where commission is a flat 14%. First though we needed enough people to be using the site.

Six months on we now have over 1100 users from across the world who are permanently on the lookout for interesting wines. If you have a large collection or whole cellar to sell, you can now access this audience and take advantage of Bid for Wine’s low fees and rapid selling time via our Large Collection Consignment Service. To access this and for more details, please log in to your account and see our Selling Large Collections page under ‘Sell Wine’. We hope you’ll agree that this service represents the future!

A recent examination of the way we run Bid for Wine led to our asking a very important question:

‘Why does Bid for Wine charge an upfront listing fee for each auction?’.

The answer is that there is a direct cost attached to each and every auction created (we have to pay for server space) which is covered by our listing fee. We also charge for setting a reserve price or starting price because both of these put off bidders (wines without a reserve price consistently fetch more than those with a reserve price).

What the point about listing fees misses though is that paying £1.75 before you know whether your lot will sell really isn’t terribly attractive! We are therefore very pleased to announce that, with immediate effect, our listing fee will now only be charged when a lot sells. In short you can now list your wine in a no-reserve auction for free – only once it sells will you be charged anything!

We’re delighted to announce two new features on Bid for Wine which we hope will make listing your wines quicker, easier and more convenient.

A shortened ‘Auction Wizard’
We’ve just cut our auction wizard down from 5 pages to 3 meaning much less time wasted waiting for pages to load and less hopping between pages if you need to change something.

Page 3 of the wizard relates to shipping of your wines and if you’ve listed wines before, the site remembers what you entered – so really you now only have to fill in 2 pages!

If you still want to use the old wizard then no problem – it is still available, though we may well move over to the new wizard as the only option in the medium term.

An option to save incomplete auctions

We’ve all been there. You’re half way through listing a wine in a spare 5 minutes before going out and the phone rings or you realise you haven’t got a tasting note for your wine to hand. Until now there was nothing for it but to close the wizard and start again at a more convenient time. No more though as we’ve now added an option to save incomplete auctions so you can complete them at your leisure.

1. Click the ‘Save Auction to Edit Later’ button

2. Next time you go to ‘Sell Wine’, you will have the option to finish previously completed listings or to start afresh.

We hope you like these modifications – as always comments are welcome!

Bid for Wine has been running for just over six months now and the business has changed significantly in that time. We’ve been very focussed on improving the site and our service but to date haven’t really backed this up with any written details about how the site deals with issues such as insuring wines in transit, managing the sale of lots consigned to us and what happens if a buyer or seller doesn’t complete a transaction. To that end, we’re today releasing a new user agreement which will take effect immediately for new users and becomes effective on 30th June for all current users. This can be viewed here.

If you don’t wish to accept the new user agreement then please contact us to close your account. If you choose to close your account, it cannot be opened again nor will you be able to use your current User ID or email address on Bid for Wine. After your account has been closed, you may return to the site at any time by registering with a new User ID and email address.

If you are thinking about closing your account please do discuss matters with us before taking this step!

NOTE: 22nd June 2009

Further to the comment below here is a summary of the main changes we’ve made.

The main user agreement is fundementally the same as our original – the major change is that we’ve added terms and conditions specifically relating to wines consigned to us, shipping and where people are buying lots sold via consigment.

In summary:

Consigned lots:
- If we think a wine is fake or there’s a reason why it shouldn’t be sold we’ll withdraw it from sale.
-Sellers need to make sure the wine is eligible for sale in the UK (all taxes paid etc).
-If we think an unrealistic reserve has been set we’ll consult the seller and revise as appropriate.

Shipping:
-We will repack wines in to specialist packaging to ensure they arrive safely.
-We now insure all UK shipments against loss and breakage but will pass on the excess if applicable.
-We now ask that people check their wines on receipt and tell us of any problems within 7 days. Longer than this and it’s hard to get a clear picture of what’s happened

Buying via Consignment:
-We now ask that people settle all invoices for consigned lots within 7 days and don’t bid if this isn’t possible as we aim to pay sellers within 7-14 days from the close of an auction.
-We have reserved the right to pass on the extra costs we incur where people pay for lots using a credit card. This isn’t going to happen at the moment but may change if we introduce a new payment system later in the year. We will of course make sure people can pay by other methods if this goes ahead.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the challenges faced by us (and anyone else in the UK who is involved in the wine trade but doesn’t have their own distribution network) is the unfortunate way that most mainstream couriers manage to break bottles in transit from time to time. The ideal solution is to use a specialist courier and/or expensive polystyrene packaging. Unfortunately this isn’t always an option so I’ve decided to put together some guidelines for anyone sending bottles to us for sale, or indeed to other people who’ve bought wine from you.

1. Ensure your bottles can’t move in transit:
Wine bottles have 3 main weak points you need to be aware of – these are the seam around their bottom, the bottom edge and the neck. If the bottle can move around in transit then one of these points will probably be where the damage happens. This can be overcome by wrapping your bottles in bubble wrap, placing the bottles in to a compartmentalised wine box (easily acquired from supermarkets or companies such as PacknMove ) and then putting packing material on top of the bottles. The pictures below show this.



2. Pack your wine in a box and then box that box
However well your wine is protected within the box it’s in there’s still the issue that a single cardboard box isn’t very strong – especially if you’re sending 6 or 12 bottles. When I pack wine up for distribution I pack it in to a standard wine box (see picture below details) and then ensure this box is securely packed within a second, much larger box. This large box should then be filled with polychips, fine shredded paper or similar. The trick is to make sure the inner box is well padded from all directions and is held in place by the padding material so it doesn’t move in transit. See the graphic below for an example.

3. Other Points

-Bubble wrap alone doesn’t protect bottles – it doesn’t fill gaps between bottles to stop them moving around.
-Mark your package to show which way is up. This can avoid corks working loose when bottles are shipped upside down. This is a rare problem which occasionally affects old bottles. If it happens though, the results aren’t pretty.

After weeks of talking about it, we’re just about to launch our feature auction of wines from a Wiltshire Cellar (mentioned here). I thought some authoritative notes might be of interest to potential bidders and Jancis Robinson has kindly agreed to let me quote hers.

Ch Kirwan 1970 Margaux 17.5 Drink 1995-2015
Wilts cellar. Lovely mellow, glowing colour. Much drier and tighter than the 1975. Intense, dry and sturdy – less obviously Margaux than the 1975. Much more marked by 1970’s firm, not to say rather uncompromising, backbone than the mellower 1975.
www.jancisrobinson.com

Ch Gruaud Larose 1982 St- Julien 18.5 Drink 1995-2018
Wilts cellar. Just starting to stray out of Broadbent into Parker territory here… This was rich, round and velvety with the most sumptuous texture yet was not remotely lacking in freshness. Round, complete and utterly satisfying. Chock full of pleasure and a delight with the 24- hour lamb with truffle creamed potato
and buttered celery.
www.jancisrobinson.com

Ch Palmer 1961 Margaux 19 Drink 1975-2015
Wilts cellar – five bottles left! I feel so privileged to have tasted this wine on so many occasions, and especially to have been given a chance to enjoy this bottle so late in its incredibly extended lifespan. What a miracle wine. (Humorist Miles Kington was sent by his brewer father to pick grapes in Bordeaux and ended up at Palmer in 1961, but the wine virus didn’t take.) Still wonderfully sweet on the nose and sinewy, positively willowy, on the palate. Quite extraordinarily persistent. Not big. Such a different animal from so many red bordeaux made today. Now taking on some slightly gamey notes with a little dustiness but lots of life and energy. It faded a little in the glass after 10 minutes or so with the acidity becoming more prominent, and I would therefore not decant this wine ahead of time if I were in the enviable position of serving it, but if the Gruaud was a wine of pleasure, this is a wine to marvel at.
www.jancisrobinson.com

Amongst other day to day tasks, I spend much of my time organising collections from and deliveries to the warehouse we use for consigned lots. This of course comes with the territory and is good news as it mean we’re selling wine. However, a disproportionate amount of time is taken up with couriers who lose or break things – this isn’t a regular occurrence but each time it happens I probably spend 8 hours picking up the pieces (investigating what has occurred, communicating with sellers or buyers, contacting insurance companies etc).

Broken bottles are bad news for everyone. In some cases bottles are irreplaceable which means a rightly upset and irritated customer. In the best case scenario it means an insurance claim which takes time and results in higher premiums in future (couriers recognise their own fallability and refuse to insure anything breakable so we foot the bill).

The real challenge is finding a solution which ensures adequate insurance and minimal breakages whilst keeping the cost as low as possible. I’ve been looking at possible solutions for some while now and have finally come up with a proposal. I should be very interested in what people think about it (you can leave comments via the ‘comments’ box below.

Royal Mail special delivery will cover glass in transit and cover ranges from £500 to £2500. This would allow us to dispatch single bottles packed in dedicated wine boxes at a cost of £14.95 including VAT.

By insuring shipments directly we can now offer shipping for up to 12 bottles at a cost of £17.00 compared to our old rate of £18.50+VAT when shipping via our warehouse.

Lots of over 12 bottles often involve wooden cases or wine in original boxes and where possible we try to keep these intact. This makes it tough to repack into sensible boxes to prevent breakages. In addition, most couriers charge a significant premium for consignments over 25kg (less than the typical weight of a case of 18 bottles plus packaging). We have therefore decided to offer shipping via a dedicated wine courier and this will be charged as follows:

• 2 Cases £27.60
• 3 Cases £29.90
• 4 Cases £32.20
• 5 Cases £34.50
• 6 Cases £36.80
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