How bad of an idea is winebid?

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
I'm unlikely to look for Bordeaux or cabernet (of any kind).

Why not? Some great QPR on mature wine.

Nothing against the wines. Just not my core zone. And per our other thread instigated by VLM, I'm trying to focus these days. Burgundy, Beaujolais, Northern Rhone and a smattering of Piedmont is already a long long list of producers for red wine!
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
I buy a lot from winebid with very few bottles in bad shape. But it helps to have a nose for the kind of wines nobody would buy in the first place who didn't have proper storage for them.

The best thing about winebid is that it's the only auction site that's good for single bottles of wine so you can really find a lot of interesting things you will get nowhere else.

Almost all true. Ideal Wine is good for single bottles in Europe but shipping costs to US make bidding on singletons and low price items prohibitively expensive.

Which reminds me that in spite of the 17% buyer’s premium on Winebid, you save money on shipping in my experience compared to retail sources. My last shipment 2 weeks ago was $2.50 a bottle ground for a full case.
 
My success with winebid has been really poor. But then I just buy cheap crap.

I second K and L. They bring in some great stuff, often domaine direct.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
I'm unlikely to look for Bordeaux or cabernet (of any kind).

Why not? Some great QPR on mature wine.

Nothing against the wines. Just not my core zone. And per our other thread instigated by VLM, I'm trying to focus these days. Burgundy, Beaujolais, Northern Rhone and a smattering of Piedmont is already a long long list of producers for red wine!

Burgundy (43%), Loire (18%), Rhone (12%) and Piedmont (11%) are the overwhelming majority of what I cellar. Bordeaux is a paltry 0.8%. Part of that is because Bordeaux is always available, as Jayson alludes to. If I want a bottle with age, it's always around and Bordeaux varieties seem to be more forgiving of mistreatment.
 
Burgundy, Beaujolais, Northern Rhone and a smattering of Piedmont is already a long long list of producers for red wine!

Yes, but then add Spain, Sicily, Jura, Provence, Portugal,...and then, you've got the WHITES. Talk about keeping up.
 
originally posted by VLM:

Burgundy (43%), Loire (18%), Rhone (12%) and Piedmont (11%) are the overwhelming majority of what I cellar. Bordeaux is a paltry 0.8%. Part of that is because Bordeaux is always available, as Jayson alludes to. If I want a bottle with age, it's always around and Bordeaux varieties seem to be more forgiving of mistreatment.

I’m at about 7% Huet and 93% everything else. (Did I miss the point?). :)

From winebid I buy a little bit of Burgundy white and red, Loire white (reds are rare and I don’t recall ever even bidding), Rhône red, and Piedmont. More German. But I don’t have a sense of these as a separate category from Bordeaux in terms of the quality of the bottles. I try only to buy bottles that seem safe from their descriptions and pictures.

I recently received a 97 Donnhoff (Brucke Spat) and an 83 Selbach (Z Schlossberg Spat) from winebid and will report back on this thread at some point that we (i.e., drinkers probably will include others on Disorder) drink those over the next few weeks. Even with an older Riesling it’s usually possible to tell if it’s been cooked or mistreated at some point. Still this will be anecdotal and I’ve generally been happy with winebid, as I stated above.
 
Don’t know to what extent yesterday’s email announcement on shipping will affect shipping costs:

From Winebid:

We wanted to let you know about an upcoming consolidation of our operations to begin on Monday, December 18, 2017. Wines will no longer be shipped or available for pickup at our Chicago warehouse (see below for transition details). All wines will now be stored and shipped directly from our Napa Valley warehouse. A new small office will remain in the Chicago area to receive wines for consignments only.

Effective with the auction ending December 17, 2017, all wine will remain in our Napa warehouse for storage or shipment according to the delivery preference on your account.

This will better allow for customized packing requests and quicker consolidation of your purchases for shipping.

The transit time for your shipping method may be impacted by this change. To review shipping rates and transit time for each shipping method please check our Shipping Calculator.

Any bottles currently in storage at our Chicago warehouse (View Unshipped Wine) can be scheduled to ship from that location until January 12, 2018. A specific shipment date of no later than January 12, 2018 must be scheduled online in Your Account or by contacting Customer Service.

Beginning January 15, 2018 we will route all wine back to our Napa warehouse for continued storage.

Please feel free to contact Customer Service directly if needed to discuss or confirm your account preferences in light of these changes.

We appreciate your business.
 
yeah, no more cheap 2-day shipments to the East Coast. Bummer. Probably means an extra $2 a bottle for us, but more importantly it severely narrows the available shipping windows.
 
I don’t sell wine often, but I do have some impressions:

1. winebid - amateur hour - best for shitty, low-end (and often not disorderly) wine and small lots. Highest commission in my limited comparisons when considering both ends (buyer+seller). I’ve almost always lost money when selling there and I’m never trying to make money - generally trying to break even. The only good thing is the perception that they have one of the largest user bases - have no idea if true.
2. K&L - great folks, great commission rates with option to apply to purchases at 105% (and this removes seller commission). (shameless plug: they have some older cru beaujolais - Lapierre, Coudert, Thevenet, Foillard, Metras, Desvignes, Gahier, various Ganevat, Macle, CRB, Rougeard, Pepiere, Briailles, Baudry, Breton, Lafarge, Barthod, Bachelet, Mugneret, Mugnier, Fourrier, Rousseau, Bertheau, Montille, Gouges, Chevy, LDH, Conterno, Mascarello, 2001 German riesling from Prum, Von Schubert, and Schaefer, La Bota, Moric, Cornelissen, and other geeky shit from my 50 degree cellar right now, ends soon). IMO, this is the best place for most disorderly wine. Relatively fast payment vs. others.
3. HDH (live auction) - focus on high end blue chips. Best overall commission rates for sellers, combined rates similar to K&L - depends on value sold. Lots of whales buying/selling here. Slowly starting to embrace stuff like Barthod, which they used to push to their Internet auction side - which isn’t as strong IMO as their live side.

-mark
 
In terms of provenance/buying side, I’ve had nothing but excellent results on HDH and K&L, but mixed results on winebid - the wines are probably fine 70% of the time.

-mark
 
the one exception is large size lots that are closeouts from importers, including i think at times Kermit Lynch
 
I picked up 2 lots from Mark’s cellar. Magnums of ‘11 Coudert Tardive and Foillard Côte du Py. My stepdaughter is hosting her post-wedding dinner for about 15 people. I’ll bring one of each. However, my intention was to win only one of those lots! I don’t need (or want) 5 magnums. I found takers for 2 of them. That’ll leave me with one Foillard.
 
My 2 cents:' I've bought a couple or three cases' worth there with no scary results. But I haven't aimed at super-premium wines or wines for the cellar. It's value, IMHO, is as venue to pick up singletons or small lots of things you'd like to try with a few years on them, to see what they're about.
 
I promised to report back on a couple wines but never did. Other folks ‘round these parts can attest or already have attested to these bottles in their posted notes.

The 1993 Jobard Blagny Rouge was outstanding. The 1983 Selbach was oldish marshmallowed Riesling so not as good.

Some others:

2004 Grunhaus Abtsberg Spatlese - wonderful! Great bottle!

Same with 2000 Francois Jobard Meursault Poruzots. So young still.

Awesome bottle of 2000 Latour-Giraud Meursault Genevrieres Cuvee des Pierre. I have come to love these wines.

That’s the last six months or so. 80% hit rate on other than Bordeaux.
 
Oh yeah. And tonight, despite being really good lately and resisting temptation left and right, I pulled the trigger at Winebid on a 1993 Lucien Boillot Cherbaudes that looked good in the picture and was inherited from the original owner, supposedly stored under temp and humidity control.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
I almost bid on that one too. No idea about the quality of the Lucien wines back then, though.

If you come North once I get it (probably not until spring), I can open it for you. The vines were only about 70 years old then, so not yet hitting their stride.
 
Another great bottle from K&L. I needed to source an old bottle of vintage Port. I was the only bidder on a bottle of '63 Quinta do Noval. I opened it on Saturday and it was absolutely stellar.
 
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