The above methods are the ways to obtain investment grade wine when they are released. However retailers typically focus on the recent wine releases and do not have comprehensive or extensive depth in older wines. The way to get these is through auction. Conventional wine auctions (those conducted in a room with a person as an auctioneer) are focused in only a few cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The main players are reputable and have been around a while (in some cases centuries) although the selling of wine by auction in the US has only gained momentum since 1990. The main players in the US are: Sotheby’s (NY), Christie’s (NY and LA), Acker Merrall & Condit (NY), Morrell (NY), Chicago Wine Company, Bonham and Butterfield (SF). If you are not near these cities you are out of luck. The auctioneers realize the problem and are flexible in the way that they take bids: you can send in absentee bids or phone in your orders in real time. They also work with their clients on different ways to ship their wine.
The main auction houses mainly deal in case lots of wine, and there are a large number of different format bottles (magnum and larger). The auction houses check out the provenance of the wine as they encourage consignments of $20,000 or more. Auction houses typically ask a buyers’ commission of around 17% (with another 1% for insurance). Therefore wine auctions are a good way to buy sizeable investments of investment grade wine, no longer in the retail channel, with good provenance. _r2_c2.jpg)
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