Found some wine and spirits... pls advise

Ok, hard to believe, but true:

Our old cleaning girl, Julir, got a call to go clean house for a little old lady. Julie goes there and finds that the lady hasnt thrown out anything since 1952. Anything.

It's now two years later, and Julie's has gotten about half the junk out of the house. Space has been cleared so it's now possible to walk into the wine cellar by carefully dodging around the piles of stuff still left to sort thru.

Now this is not a distinguished wine cellar-- just a cool and dry room. The place is too grungy with 52 yrs of dust to do much exploring, but a quick glance shows about a dozen to two dozen bottles of good-name scotches, whiskies, and wines. All have been stored upright, so I assume there may be some problem with dried-up corks, from what I've heard.

Now the problem: I don't know anything about selling the stuff. Is it worth the trouble to get the stuff out of there, negotiate a price, clean up the bottles, market them somehow, refund buyers that receive vinegar, etc.. ?

Any ideas appreciated.

(sorry if this is a FAQ question)

Regards,

George

Reply to
George R. Gonzalez
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Scotch and whisky don't improve (or decline) once bottled. These are worth exactly what they would be new, though you'd get less than a retail store (why would anyone pay an individual as much, and labels are likely unsightly).

I personally don't know any wine collector (and I know a lot!) who would buy a bottle that had been sitting upright in a dry room for 50 years. Sorry.

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Reply to
Dale Williams

...all of the above is true but please do not ignore the human element in this whole question: people collect things, and some very weird things are quite valuable to the right person. Very old bottles of wine have auctioned off at immoderate prices to wine collectors (that is, collectors of old wine bottles, not of the wine itself) so you probably would be well advised to dig the stuff out, figure what it is and list it somewhere. You might start here with the wines or take a look at eBay to see what other similar things are floating around the market. As Dale noted, the spirits don't deteriorate so there might be some value there, and some things (a 50 year old Cognac bottling, perhaps) might just be very interesting. What a wonderful way you have of passing a few days and learning about something new. Good luck.

pavane

Reply to
pavane

"pavane" skrev i melding news:5JG2d.33911$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...

Fwiw, I think I've heard that a 3-star cognac of 50-70 years ago was the equivalent of a V.S.O.P. or even a Napoleon today. Marketing, of course - people go for what is perceived as a great buy, and buy names and/or designations. You got problems selling your 3-star brandy? Put two more on the label, and increase the price Wow, sales take off! So, that odd bottle of 50 years ago might even be very good! (Or very poor, of course :-) Anders

Reply to
Anders Tørneskog

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