Acker Feb 6 US Auction--a Question Mark or Two

[John Trombley]

Sorry I'm having trouble with this link, but it may be this: http://email.ackerwines.com/wf/click?up ... oxJA-3D-3D

I'm curious as to what folks here might know about these lots, apparently from a Madierese resident who has a large amount of bottles that look unique to his private cellar, claiming to need money to do more Madeira scholarship. Lots 804-827. I think his initials are OC. To quote the blurb in the catalog:

SPECTACULAR MADEIRA
This resident of Madeira has been passionately pursuing the venerable wines of this historic island for nearly two decades, purchasing
many of the wines directly from the producers and old houses after diligent research and tasting. He currently has over
600 bottles of rare Madeiras and has decided to part with a significant slice of legendary wines spanning 1795 to 1928 to make
room for new purchases in his scholarly pursuit to find and share the special wines of Madeira. All wines kept in a temperature
and humidity controlled home cellar before being transported here for this sale.

This auctioneer has raised a few hackles in me before by his apparent sloppiness with German wines, offering them in large lots poorly identified, showing a certain disregard for them to some onlookers. Hasn't taken the trouble to familiarize himself with German labeling and type; this catalog has a sufficient example of the latter problem for those who are curious.

[Eric Menchen]

Acker is not 100% on listings. But sometimes that can work in your favor, like when I bought a 1978 Barca Velha that was listed as a Ferriera Port from that year. They did respond to my inquiry when I e-mailed them, and I think they sent me a picture of the listing in question. If you have questions, you could try asking them.

[Eric Ifune]

I see your problem with some of the German attributions. The Madeira ones look OK to me however.

[John Trombley]

I see your problem with some of the German attributions. The Madeira ones look OK to me however.

My issue is a question about the OC Brothers Collection. Are these wines that were part of a commercial bottling, and just labeled as being from this collection (some of these wines from Oliveira and Barbieto and so forth look quite recongnizably commercial, it seems), or are they special bottlings or special lots? I have heard some of you say here that there could have been multiple releases of some of these wines. Each release then could represent significant quality differences. I also should look at the estimate ranges to see if they're reasonable. In addition, if there is more than one brother, are there issues with multiple ownership interests? Am asking the auctioneer's team about that. Perhaps someone who knows Madeira might know who these OC Brothers are, and about their Collection, since this fellow has been collecting at close range for a long time.

Some of these wines must be close to unique; of course I don't know enough to recognize them. I'm going to enter as many of these as possible in CellarTracker; however, so far not many of them are similar to wines from the same maker, variety, and style. There have been a few instances of similar wines that show up on other websites. Let me go back to work on this.

I was looking at this to see if I could find something reasonable for our April 'do', but I've got due diligence to do! (Do do di do to you!)

[Eric Ifune]

I don't see much that is unknown. All well known producers. Even the 1795 Terrantez is a well known wine, but probably only a few bottles left worldwide at this point.

[John Trombley]

Thanks, Eric. The Auction House has been responsive to receiving my questions, so we'll see.

These bottles ID'd with initials, are they known, too?