The Auswine Forum

Hi All
Ive seen the topic of Auction Sites covered in a few posts.
What Auction Site do you recommend to use and what has been your best bargain to date?
Thanks all.

Way too many to mention. Recent gems for me.
Howard Park 2004 cab $36
Greenock Creek Apricot Block 2004 $32
John Riddoch 2004 $40
Cape Mentelle 1991 $48

Langton's has the best website however it is expensive (15% buyers premium and high shipping/insurance costs if you are unable to pickup from the warehouse). Buying 12 bottles at a time helps.

Unless you happen to know of a winery that has being doing great things but does not have the reputation they deserve then there are not going to be many bargains on there... most Australian wine is priced appropriately in my experience.

winetastic wrote:Langton's has the best website however it is expensive (15% buyers premium and high shipping/insurance costs if you are unable to pickup from the warehouse). Buying 12 bottles at a time helps.

Unless you happen to know of a winery that has being doing great things but does not have the reputation they deserve then there are not going to be many bargains on there... most Australian wine is priced appropriately in my experience.

I think that's a tad harsh - maybe you don't often find incredibly cheap things but I look at it another way: if there's a wine I like and am happy to pay normal retail cost for a new vintage of then if I can find an acknowledged good year of the same wine at auction for the same price or less, then I'd call that a bargain.

We just have different definitions of what a bargain is... I feel that paying somewhat close to retail price of the current vintage for a wine that is say 5-10 years old is probably "correct". You need to take into account that the provenance of these bottles is often unknown or rather questionable, so the price should be capped to a certain degree since the buyer is assuming that risk.

You will see that for most well known labels with strong cellaring histories, eg Wynns Black Label Cabernet, the better vintages are selling for at least 2-3 times the current RRP...

For what its worth I buy "ready to drink" wine at auction on a regular basis since I have not been cellaring wine long enough for the majority to be into their drinking windows.

My greatest bargain buy were 6 bottles of Meerea Park Alexander Munro Shiraz 1998 for a shade over $21 each (inc shipping etc.)

Langmeil Freedom Shiraz 2002 $40
Wynns JR 1994 and 1996 about $40 each
Penfolds Yattarna 05 $35
Eileen Hardy Chard 06 $30ish

and there are more

then again, I've paid money for wines that have been far from satisfactory so swings and roundabouts come into play

Wow, excellent prices for the '94 and '96 Wynns JR and the '91 Cape Mentelle. I haven't seen the Eileen Hardy Chardonnay for quite sometime but I recall paying about C$25 for the '98 some years back.

If I found those wines for those prices on a retail shelf over here i would consider it a "steal".

Cheers............Mahmoud.

Its only gonna be a "steal" if it has been discounted after sitting on a Los Angeles wharf!!!
Maybe you should enlighten your Aussie fans and followers as to the tax structure/rep mark-ups etc here in Alberta?

Well Bob, in the "old days" when the ALCB stores (government-run liquor outlets) were around there were rumours about their keen purchase of wines that had been sitting on the docks in Los Angeles. ACME Importers in California if I remember correctly.

Today, the retail sector is private but all wines still go through a central, government-owned warehouse. Importers and their agents import the wine but delivery must be to the government warehouse. At the warehouse, instead of an ad valorem tax based on the the value of the wine, the government imposes a flat tax. Hence the tax on a Little Penguin is the same as the tax on the Grange. The flat tax was recently raised to C$3.34/bottle.

Initially all wines over C$15/bottle went down in price. As a result, premium wines in Alberta were some of the cheapest in Canada. However, the importers, agents and reps have taken advantage of the low tax and the resultant price difference and raised the wholesale price to the point where our prices are not much different from our neighbours in British Columbia where the government run sector has a 117% mark-up.

A retailer must order a wine from the centrally-administered distributor. If a wine was to be damaged or spoiled then virtually all retailers would be selling that wine. When I refer to the "steals" that I occasionally find here I am referring to a lower than normal price for the wine in this market.

Sometimes an agent will decide to get rid of some stock and will drastically reduce the wholesale price. As a result it is possible to find the wine at a much lower price in a store that has bought stock at the newly reduced wholesale price, provided the retailer passed the savings on to the customer. Case in point: Rozes 10 year-old Tawny for C$15/bottle in the store that bought all the remaining stock as opposed to the C$37 it still costs in another outlet at the old price.

There are also situations where a retail chain charges different prices for the same wine depending on the outlet. I have seen price differences of C$10-15 for the same wine, and I am talking about wines at regular price, not discounted or for sale. This same chain will even advertise, in-store, a higher retail price while offering a sale price. Case in point: a Chateauneuf du Pape that sells for C$42-46 in most stores, including this retail chain, but I saw one outlet advertise "Regular $55, now $45, Save$10". Meanwhile you can find the same wine for $45 at any of their other outlets. Other times this same chain will heavily discount a wine that remains regularly priced at their other outlets. Case in point an importer brand chardonnay from Australia that is currently selling for C$20 in almost all their outlets is available for C$11.99 at one of them.

Now, because of this kind of fluctuating prices they make mistakes, plenty of them. Some may think I am taking advantage of it and truth be known I do. However, my policy is this: when I see this retailer taking advantage of the customer by this kind of pricing manipulations I don't say anything to the staff or manager. So when I see a lower price, be it a sale or a mistake, I don't say anything either. It is their choice to pursue the prices they want and it is my decision wether to buy.

Bottom line: my "steals" have been either wholesale liquidations, genuine sale prices or mistakes on the part of one retail chain.

Cheers..........Mahmoud.

1989 HOG $90. Not the flashest vintage on paper but drank extremely well!! Was very surprised. Way better than the vile 1993

C

Has anyone seen any impact on the way Langton's performs since it was taken over by Dan Murphy's?

Tom Munro wrote:Has anyone seen any impact on the way Langton's performs since it was taken over by Dan Murphy's?

I've been wondering the same thing, actually, but how can you tell ?

yep, i'm not sure what to expect myself - the impact may be more clear in Dan Murphy's stores where unusual/hard-to-find batches may start appearing (on the assumption that Langton's brings to Dan's the opportunity to buy wine from private collectors). This may be a good thing. I will also be interested in seeing if there are any changes to the Langton's Classification of Australia's top drops.

Tom Munro wrote:yep, i'm not sure what to expect myself - the impact may be more clear in Dan Murphy's stores where unusual/hard-to-find batches may start appearing (on the assumption that Langton's brings to Dan's the opportunity to buy wine from private collectors). This may be a good thing. I will also be interested in seeing if there are any changes to the Langton's Classification of Australia's top drops.

I suspect there won't be a great change to the composition of the Langton's offerings at the top end - any 'let's offload Woolies or DM stock' will be done at the lower end and in bulk, and I don't really see a commercial upside for the company to offload wines from private collectors for lower commissions. And the classification should continue to reflect commercial reality.

In a perfect world?

Allan

Tom Munro wrote:Has anyone seen any impact on the way Langton's performs since it was taken over by Dan Murphy's?

Without hijacking this thread, im not sure if this is due to the vendor or not but i have noticed the price estimate on Krug Vintage Champagne spike from 300-400 to 500-600 in the last two auctions and noted that it is was still only realising low 300's on some vintages. Is this estimate manipulation we are seeing?

It has also been rumoured to me by a few people in the industry that Dan's has been looking to offload a lot of back vintage wine they have been cellaring for some time now. Apparently they are finding the costs are out weighting their returns. This could be a positive or negative.

Regardless i believe there is always a danger to the consumer when a major corporate entity acquires a business which is essentually the leading price benchmark for a secondary market such as wine.

RedVelvet wrote:

Tom Munro wrote:Has anyone seen any impact on the way Langton's performs since it was taken over by Dan Murphy's?

Without hijacking this thread, im not sure if this is due to the vendor or not but i have noticed the price estimate on Krug Vintage Champagne spike from 300-400 to 500-600 in the last two auctions and noted that it is was still only realising low 300's on some vintages. Is this estimate manipulation we are seeing?

It has also been rumoured to me by a few people in the industry that Dan's has been looking to offload a lot of back vintage wine they have been cellaring for some time now. Apparently they are finding the costs are out weighting their returns. This could be a positive or negative.

Regardless i believe there is always a danger to the consumer when a major corporate entity acquires a business which is essentually the leading price benchmark for a secondary market such as wine.

In simple terms "buggrit!". People will pay at auction (and anywhere else) only what they are prepared to pay. If there is a flood of stuff, the average price might drop. Regardless, caveat emptor (buyer beware) - but doesn't this apply to all auctions?

The market will respond.