Auction Houses?

[Stewart T.]

What are your go-to auction houses in the US for Portuguese wines?

[Eric Ifune]

I like Hart, Davis, Hart. I've also bought a lot from Christies and Zachys. A few times from Heritage. Christies traditionally has a lot of Madeira for sale in NYC in Dec.

[Mike J. W.]

Don't you have to arrange your own shipping with Christie and / or their freight is expensive? Someone I know who bought Scotch from them said something along those lines. I can't remember exactly. What's your experience been with them?

Hart Davis Hart is good. I also use Acker's and Zachy's often. I've used Heritage a few times as well, no complaints with them either, but their selction is usually fairly limited. Wine Bid has good deals sometimes.

[Eric Menchen]

So I'm not sure of any auction source that I would say is good for Portuguese wines in particular. Most have a reasonable selection of Port, and as Eric I. mentioned, Christie's has had a fair amount of Madeira in the last five years. Here's my general impression of various auction houses:

• Acker: I've bought quite a bit of wine from them and continue to do so. I've found some of my best bargains there. At the same time, some of the worst condition bottles have come from there. They do disclose the bottle conditions with a lot of information, and I adjust my bids or skip lots accordingly. They don't have pictures for their weekly auctions nor for everything in the live auctions. But I've sent them an e-mail about lots and they've sent pictures in response. I don't fully trust them to scrutinize every bottle, and wouldn't be surprised if some of old bottles they've listed were fakes. I think they've had some of the OP Brothers recorked bottles. I'm avoiding those. Website has some filters to find just what you are looking for, but they aren't good at narrowing down, and given that sometimes things are miscategorized, I tend to not use them much.
• Brentwood: I bought from them years ago. No idea about how things are today.
• The Chicago Wine Company: Generally the most beautiful bottles I've purchased have come from here. They have a caveat emptor section that I've bought from, and even those bottles were nicer than usual. Their prices tend to be on the higher end, and I haven't shopped there lately.
• Christie's: I used to follow them regularly, and buy occasionally. But as Mike mentioned, their shipping costs went way up, and I've not bought from them in a few years. I'm used to spending $25-50 for shipping a case of wine via ground. My last shipping charge from Christie's was more like $100.
• Hart Davis Hart: I've bid at HDH many times, but usually been outbid. So I find that their prices run high. And the case of 1977 Warre VP I bought didn't have bottles in the greatest condition (unlike the case I bought from Zachy's about a decade ago that was beautiful); so I haven't been back.
• K&L: Their auction just seems like an extension of their retail operation, with similar prices. I've bought from them, but not in a while because of this.
• Leland Little: I bought from here after someone came onto FTLOP looking for information on how to sell a large Port collection I believe he inherited. We suggested he try to direct sell, and he ended up going here. I picked up a 6-er of Vesuvio, I think for less than I would have paid direct. I think their shipping was expensive, and I've seen high prices as well since, so I haven't been looking there in a while.
• Spectrum: I put Spectrum in the middle of the pack. They have a lot of stuff, with reasonable prices, and generally good condition. On the plus side, nearly every listing has photos. Their filters work, although their is a slight awkwardness in using them. (Some are mutually exclusive, so if you click something, the old filter is removed, whereas others are not, so you click the second thing and the combination means you get nothing.)
• Wally's: I bought a few bottles from them a while back. They've now aligned with Christie's.
• Winebid: They great part about winebid is that they have high resolution pictures of nearly every bottle, and their website has very good filters. The prices are on the reasonable to high side. I do find some really odd interesting things here occasionally, like a 1959 Jonica.
• Zachy's: I've bought from Zachy's a little bit in recent years. In 2014 I had a bad purchase, a mix up of Rauzan-Gassies with Rauzan-Segla. They didn't make a reasonable offer to compensate me for wrong bottles, so I shipped them back, and through a long series of e-mails, etc. it took more than 8 months to get my money back. That turned me off of them for a while, such that I only made two purchases from 2015-2017. But apparently I got over it and bought a fair bit in 2018 and 2019.

I think I bought a bottle from Heritage once, but I'm not sure. I've not bought from Sotheby's, nor Bonham's.
Summary: My top two are Winebid and Acker, the former for a good website and selection, the latter for price. Zachy's comes in third.

[John M.]

I would 2nd most of what Eric said with the following additions

Hart Davis Hart wants a huge reserve to bid so if you are on a budget difficult.

Leland...everything always goes so high here. Good for them but I stopped shopping.

WineBid sells mostly one bottle in a lot. That can be handy if trying for a vertical/horizontal of something.

I miss Morrell...they had a lot of odd lots. I had a problem with an order once---won some VPs which turned out to be LBVs; I got a full credit and they "sold" me the bottles for $12.00 each (with no shipping).

not that its an auction but WTSO has an occasional port usually at a good price.

[Eric Menchen]

Minor update: I live in Colorado, where there are no auction houses to speak of. WineBid is on the west coast, about 1200 miles away, Acker on the east, about 1800 miles away. I received shipments from both this spring via FedEx ground. The Acker shipment seemed more expensive to me this year, at $72.61 per case. The WineBid shipment was $29.89 per case.

[Andy Velebil]

Minor update: I live in Colorado, where there are no auction houses to speak of. WineBid is on the west coast, about 1200 miles away, Acker on the east, about 1800 miles away. I received shipments from both this spring via FedEx ground. The Acker shipment seemed more expensive to me this year, at $72.61 per case. The WineBid shipment was $29.89 per case.

Aker and HDH are both very high on shipping costs, as you’ve found out with Aker.

I’ve stopped using HDH because of it. I know of other wine buyers who’ve done the same.

[David Spriggs]

Leland Little:
The few wines I've bought here don't give me comfort because the wines were advanced on the palate and to me it seemed that storage was an issue. So I have stopped buying wines there.

[Moses Botbol]

Leland Little:
The few wines I've bought here don't give me comfort because the wines were advanced on the palate and to me it seemed that storage was an issue. So I have stopped buying wines there.

They're a shipping hassle for me. Bought stuff at a giveaway prices a few times. I work in Raleigh often, so I had to wait to collect the wine. Not worth it for me.