For The Love Of Port

Christie's Fine & Rare, 11 Oct 13, NYC
Lots 301 & 302, 1 bottle each, estimate of $2,800-3,500 (plus the buyer's premium ~21%)

There are a fair number of other lots of Port, mostly full cases 1992, 1994, and 1997.

Do you have a sense how much these went for at retail?

Eric Menchen wrote:....(plus the buyer's premium ~21%)

plus sales tax if you're in the "wrong" state

At retail, these went for about $3,000 or $3,300 per bottle.

But if you searched hard enough you could find a retailer who might sell you one for $2,700 or $2,800 or so, I believe.

What did the last one that came to auction hammer at?

Am guessing people who were gifted these bottles (by someone who paid retail, i assume) are looking to cash them in...
Am sure there will be plenty out there happy to get such weight off their hands!

I'm presuming that a few people also bought them purely as speculation. No more at retail, let's see what they go for at auction ...

We were just at the Taylor's Lodge tasting room in Gaia last week and they had Scion for sale right there in the tasting room. If I remember correctly, it was selling for something close to $3,000 per bottle. You could spend 100 Euros and get a tasting though. Kind of wish I had done that. Oh well.

-Lisa

2500 euros at the lodge.

I don't know if this is the last hammer price, Moses, but this happened in May: http://www.klwines.com/Auction/Bidding/ ... ku=1130699

You could get some a lot of dynamite Madeira for that price.

Given the closure, you can't even Coravin it!!

Very interesting - neither of the lots show up in the results from the sale which means they didn't sell at auction. Either they were withdrawn or failed to reach reserve. Reserve is usually one or two bids below low estimate, which means that no-one was willing to pay $2,200 +21% for a bottle.

What is happening kind of reminds me of what happened to Krug Clos d'Ambonnay. Released in small quantity at a very high price. After a year or 2 auction prices came down 50% from release price. Guess the people who were buying the stuff realized there were better opportunities elsewhere, and that even if the wine is rare, if there are only a handful of willing participants in the market to acquire the product, they soon discover there is ample supply to go around :)

I'm speculating , but I think that in the case of Port there just aren't enough speculators. I think most people buy Port - even the really expensive stuff - to drink it. So if you're hoping that the price will rise in value you're probably going to find that everyone who wanted a bottle already got one, and there's no demand for your post-release marked-up bottle.

Despite my own pack-rat tendencies, people just don't collect Port. They drink it. And that's a good thing.

Glenn E. wrote:I'm speculating , but I think that in the case of Port there just aren't enough speculators. I think most people buy Port - even the really expensive stuff - to drink it. So if you're hoping that the price will rise in value you're probably going to find that everyone who wanted a bottle already got one, and there's no demand for your post-release marked-up bottle.

Despite my own pack-rat tendencies, people just don't collect Port. They drink it. And that's a good thing.

Glen,

I was actually thinking that this is also true for Madeira (the wine authenticating from there).

When looking at its recent pricing (not only the really old Frasqueiras but also newer ones) I have to say

1) prices have increased by 50% the least in the last 3-5 years
2) what I might have drunk in the past is now also maybe a speculation object (hard to open a bottle worth 1500 bucks doe ourselves)
3) I wonder if this price-tendency will continue.