Great Port at US auction house

[Roy Hersh]

This week we present a Superb Selection of Over 1000 Lots, including an Incredible, Brand New Vintage Port Collection featuring the Finest Houses and the Most Desirable Vintages! This collection includes such legends as Dow 1963 and 1977; Graham 1955, 1963 and 1966; Quinta do Noval 1960; Sandeman 1955 and 1977; Taylor Fladgate 1960, 1963, 1970 and Warre 1955, 1970 and 1985!

http://www.brentwoodwine.com/

[Glenn E.]

I just received my second auction winnings from Brentwood, and they're now 2 for 2 with errors.

The first time they listed a 1965 Graham's as a vintage port when it was, in fact, a Graham's Grand Reserve Colheita. (Graham's doesn't have a 1965 VP, which I didn't find out until afterward.) I probably would have bid on the bottle either way, but I also probably wouldn't have bid as high if I had known it was a Colheita and not a VP. They refunded me the difference between my winning bid and the minimum bid, though, so it all worked out in the end. Still... error #1.

This time they had the quality listings for two bottles that I purchased backwards. They listed the 1985 Sandeman as excellent and the 1985 Fonseca as "signs of seepage" when in fact it was the other way around. Error #2 out of 2 orders. (Technically that's two errors, as both bottles were incorrectly listed. If two separate people had purchased them they'd have potentially had two complaints though I doubt the purchaser of the Fonseca would have said anything.) Had I been eagerly awaiting my "excellent" Sandeman and only casually interested in the Fonseca, I would have been quite upset. Luckily for them I was eagerly awaiting the Fonseca and so I'm quite pleased that it is in excellent condition.

Has anyone else had problems like this before? I have to say that I'm not all that inclined to use them again given their track record so far...

[Roy Hersh]

Are you kidding? You wound up a winner in each case! Which would you rather have the better bottle of, the Sandeman or the '85 Fonseca? Duh. And the fact that they gave you the minimum bid on the first lot is a heck of a nice gesture.

Either way, they still screwed up.

I don't buy from them for a different reason (ignored emails over an extended period of time) yet, I still think on occasion they do have some very interesting Ports for sale with very good chances of winning there.

[Glenn E.]

Are you kidding? You wound up a winner in each case!

Absolutely! I'm satisfied with the results in both cases... "pleased" would be more correct in the second for the obvious reason. I'm putting the Sandeman in my queue right after the 1985 Smith Woodhouse that I still intend to open this month for the virtual tasting.

...yet, I still think on occasion they do have some very interesting Ports for sale with very good chances of winning there.

I agree. Both auctions had some very nice ports with what I thought were reasonable minimum bids, and there didn't seem to be very many other people participating. Perhaps 4-5 total bidders in either auction. Very few of the lots ended up with competition, so most of them sold at the minimum bids. Quite a few of the lots didn't even get their minimum bids.

My concern is that the trend so far indicates that they're sloppy with their records, which tells me I probably shouldn't bid on anything that might actually be valuable. I imagine that I'd be pretty upset if I purchased a Noval Nacional from them, for example, only to find out that the quality was incorrect or that it was mislabeled and was just a normal Noval VP and not actually a Nacional after all.

[Moses Botbol]

I won a bunch of stuff from them and all the bottles are pristine.