Restaurant owners and managers from across the country were excitedly waving their paddles at this year’s annual trade-only Premiere Napa Valley (PNV) auction in February, each looking to secure one-of-a-kind lots of rare wines for their lists or to showcase at exclusive wine dinners.
“It’s exciting to walk away having bought something,” says Jason Cooper, the owner of Velvet 48, a restaurant and wine bar in Burlingame, California. “This year, I bought one lot of rosé made together by Cathy Corison, Rosemary Cakebread, and Steve Matthiasson. I understand it’s only the second or third lot of rosé ever sold at this auction.”
Robert Rand, the owner of Archie’s Waeside, a steakhouse in Le Mars, Iowa, says he comes to Napa each year to bid for rare wines that serve as a prime attraction to his rural restaurant. “We’ve only about 9,000 people where we live in northwest Iowa,” says Rand, “but we draw customers from more than 100 miles away because of our wine list.”
https://daily.sevenfifty.com/a-buyers-guide-to-wine-auctions/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0a-_daPadpe90b70REogAS0uCywxvUwgPcdSA8361QPo95iyXFAee2n5w_aem_AdMxGjkv2aHy3AQ17H639DZOjS_C2FBz0drAK9iNxYNNE7AB8sJtsH62F89TbO7mrD0ZjtjMT48QhBO0sck2NSczWhile auctions can be exciting places to acquire important wines, experienced bidders such as Cooper and Rand have taken the time to understand the different types of auctions, which helps them maximize the benefits and avoid surprises.
There are two basic types of auctions. Consumer auctions allow anyone with the financial resources to bid, while trade auctions, such as PNV, are only open to professionals who make, buy, or sell wines. Consumer auctions usually consist of old and rare bottles from a collector’s cellar, although they sometimes include library wines that a producer has not yet released for sale.
Trade auctions, also known as barrel auctions, offer new vintages of unreleased wines still in barrel, which are often produced to support a local charity, or as a fundraiser for a regional association of wine producers. A successful bidder buys a lot of a predetermined number of cases, usually of a wine that’s exclusive to the bidder once pre-auction tastings have been completed. Although the bidder pays immediately, the wine won’t be bottled and shipped for months or years, depending on the wine.
Next, Rand says he does his homework. “I check out the wines being auctioned and their average prices before I get there,” he says, “then I look at what’s happening in online bidding.” Several sources track wine selling prices on the secondary market, including Liv-ex and Wine Market Journal.
The markup for auction wines is sometimes less than wines bought at retail, but Rand says that he always makes a profit. “They usually go on my lists at $300 to $600 a bottle.”
Even in states that don’t allow auction wines on restaurant wine lists, successful bidders may be able to feature wines at special dinners or as their contributions at local charity auctions.
“At trade auctions, the wines are still in barrels, so when they finally ship us the wines, I have them also send the barrel heads,” says Rand. “We keep them on the wall in one room of the restaurant. Our customers love it!”
