Nice collection of Port for sale

[Chris G.]

There's 1311 bottles total. If someone wanted to offer $35.85 per bottle and take care of transportation(show up in a box truck and I'll help load), I would entertain that offer.

[Moses Botbol]

If it gets to the point where it's not worth my time to advertise it, negotiate it, and ship it, then it will end up at a auction house and I can wash my hands of it. I'm going to base my quotes and discount them based on recent sales and not ones that happened in the past 5 years.

If you post your list with associated case prices, you'll see the response you'll get. Make sure to factor in wine shippers and additional boxes to ship the OWC's into your quote.

Unfortunately, port does not increase at the rate of Bordeaux and the like. Certainly less port is made, but the consumption rate is like a snail compared to Bordeaux. As much as I'd like to buy your port, in the end you are better off consigning to auction. I have been there with the headache of selling case to one person, a few bottles to another and in the end it's more headache than its worth. I am not trying to rain on your parade or anything like that; just offer some honest self leant advice.

[Moses Botbol]

There's 1311 bottles total. If someone wanted to offer $35.85 per bottle and take care of transportation(show up in a box truck and I'll help load), I would entertain that offer.

That's about 2 pallets.

[Andy Velebil]

That is a lot of wine for any single person to buy. It will probably be a headache to try and sell it piece meal one case at a time here and there. And with that much, you will need a liquor license. If the fed's catch wind they most likely will come for a visit. I'd recommend sending it to auction. You'll probably get close to the price/bottle average you're asking and you won't have any of the headaches of dealing with dozens of people. Just my

[Moses Botbol]

I'd recommend sending it to auction. You'll probably get close to the price/bottle average you're asking and you won't have any of the headaches of dealing with dozens of people. Just my

You may want to split it up in two pallets and consign one pallet and see how that goes. If you do all at once, the average hammer price could be lower. Winter is a good time to auction port, so at least you have that. Seeing how none of the cases are real high end stuff, the consignment window does not have to be as long. An auction house could do straight online auction vs. printed catalog...

[Eric Menchen]

I'm going to base my quotes and discount them based on recent sales and not ones that happened in the past 5 years.

I threw out the five years figure because all of my Port buying has been in the past five years. The Martinez purchase was probably almost five years ago. The Taylor and Fonseca purchases were probably 2-3 years ago. The 1994 Vesuvio was within the last two years. I can dig up exact dates if you wish, but I don't have that in CellarTracker, so it would involve me finding receipts. (I only migrated to CellarTracker earlier this year when my friend was sending stuff off to auction.)

As for prices in the past five years, if you dig around here you'll find a thread where I posted a graph of 2001 Angelus showing a steady increase in retail price during that time, 2003 Noval increasing but not as much, and 1985 Graham not increasing at all. Here's a graph for auction prices of a basket at HDH, another auction house I have purchased from. Prices went up after the economic downturn of 2008-2009, but they've come down from that peak in 2010 and held pretty steady for the past three years.

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[Eric Menchen]

BTW Chris, I do wish you luck in your sale. I'd love to discuss prices for 6x1992 Vesuvio and 6x1997 Vesuvio, which would make a full case for shipping. But as others have alluded to, trying to sell to individuals is going to be a major undertaking, and complicated by shipping. I've bought from many of the major auction houses (Christie's, Zachy's, AMC, TCWC, HDH, Spectrum ...) as well as some of the retailers that buy up collections (BPW, Benchmark, ...), and can give you my opinion of them. I don't know who you've talked to thus far, but an option closer to you would be Leland Little (Hillsborough, NC). I bid in one of their auctions earlier this year for some Bordeaux, but was outbid quite a bit. You might get better prices through them, but I don't know if they move much Port.

[Glenn E.]

That is a lot of wine for any single person to buy. It will probably be a headache to try and sell it piece meal one case at a time here and there. And with that much, you will need a liquor license. If the fed's catch wind they most likely will come for a visit. I'd recommend sending it to auction. You'll probably get close to the price/bottle average you're asking and you won't have any of the headaches of dealing with dozens of people. Just my

That's an excellent point, Andy.

Chris, prices paid generally work like this: retail > auction > private sale. Using an auction site's estimates for a private sale isn't going to get you very far, because those prices - even the low estimate - are higher than what you'll get from a private person-to-person sale. This is because the buyer has the auction site helping to mitigate the risk. Retail mitigates the risk even further, thus you pay the highest prices at retail.

As a general rule of thumb, you can expect to net somewhere in the range of 50-70% of winesearcher.com low prices in a private transaction. (There's something of an art to figuring out an accurate winesearcher.com low price, though.) For example the low price on 1994 Vesuvio right now is $75/bottle, but that's a single store. However several locations of Total Wine have it for $90, so that's the upper limit of its value. (It has apparently gone up in the last year, as I've seen it on winesearcher for as low as $60 in that time.)

Using Total Wine's $90, you would expect to net no more than $45 to $65 per bottle in a private sale. You might gross closer to $90 from an auction house, but then you'd have to pay whatever fees are involved out of the gross amount so the net would likely be somewhat less than $90. And you probably wouldn't get $90 from an auction house because it's available at retail for that price and auctions generally go for less than retail. (Roughly speaking, you can use the site's buyer's premium as the expected discount from retail, so typically around 20% or ~$70 in this example.)

Some others using this method:

1994 Taylor ($135 at Hart Davis Hart) nets $67.50 to $95.
1994 Fonseca ($145 at Premier Cru) nets $72.50 to $101.50.
1994 Martinez ($64 at European Wine Resource) nets $32 to $45.
1985 Fonseca or Graham ($80 at various) nets $40 to $56.
1977 Fonseca ($170 at various) nets $85 to $120.
1977 Taylor ($120 at Hart Davis Hart) nets $60 to $84.

And so on. Given the amount of Port that you have, taking it to an auction house really probably is your best bet for convenience and also for legal reasons as Andy mentioned. If you'd like to sell a few cases here then I'm sure you will find buyers, but the bulk of it is probably best sold via auction.

[Roy Hersh]

Well there's certainly no shortage of FREE advice here.

[Andy Velebil]

Well there's certainly no shortage of FREE advice here.

We're kinda good at that

[Eric Menchen]

It's worth every penny!

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

[Moses Botbol]

It's worth every penny!

Especially when the advice is consistent.

[John M.]

We can laugh about it, but one of the best things about this site is the solid advice---from TNs (without an agenda), to decant times, storage, etc. I am thankful for all of you in our shared interest---you have maximized my enjoyment.

[Andy Velebil]

We can laugh about it, but one of the best things about this site is the solid advice---from TNs (without an agenda), to decant times, storage, etc. I am thankful for all of you in our shared interest---you have maximized my enjoyment.

Now when are you coming to L.A. so we can share some bottles. The weather is much nicer here (well, not right now but this rain will be gone soon and we'll be back to 65-70 degrees and sunny in about 28 hours)

[Julian D. A. Wiseman]

There's 1311 bottles total. If someone wanted to offer $35.85 per bottle and take care of transportation(show up in a box truck and I'll help load), I would entertain that offer.

As I live in London and don’t have $47k handy, I can’t. But if you were near me and I did have the money, I would.

[Justin A]

Chris,
Please contact me. I live close by and am interested. I emailed you and PM'd you through this board.

Thanks
J

[Peter Handel]

We can laugh about it, but one of the best things about this site is the solid advice---from TNs (without an agenda), to decant times, storage, etc. I am thankful for all of you in our shared interest---you have maximized my enjoyment.

Now when are you coming to L.A. so we can share some bottles. The weather is much nicer here (well, not right now but this rain will be gone soon and we'll be back to 65-70 degrees and sunny in about 28 hours)

How often do you guys do offlines? I live in San Jose, and this thread has made me thirsty

[Andy Velebil]

We can laugh about it, but one of the best things about this site is the solid advice---from TNs (without an agenda), to decant times, storage, etc. I am thankful for all of you in our shared interest---you have maximized my enjoyment.

Now when are you coming to L.A. so we can share some bottles. The weather is much nicer here (well, not right now but this rain will be gone soon and we'll be back to 65-70 degrees and sunny in about 28 hours)

How often do you guys do offlines? I live in San Jose, and this thread has made me thirsty

Anytime you want to come to L.A. (I don't get to San Jose much these days)

[Julian D. A. Wiseman]

Anytime you come to London, let me know. We really do like drinking Port.

[Peter Handel]

That's really kind of you guys, but travel is difficult with three young kids

I'd love to organize something mid/late next year here in CA...