How To Sell Vintage Wine ??

Sell them or pour them down the drain? Do you drink wine or are you just trolling?

If you've had proper storage, the '66 BV GdlT is probably worth $100. My guess is a Sebastiani would be worth more like $20. I could be wrong, Tom S. might have more info.

Winecommune.com is best bet for selling yourself. Winebid.com is another possibility.

Prices will be much lower if bottles are in iffy condition or you can't prove good storage.

I well remember the 66 BV. If it's been cellared impeccably I'd pay $100 for it. I don't know anything about the Sebastiani.

Tom S

Andre Tchelistcheff.

M.

[SNIP] Mondavi may have made something [SNIP]

Joe,

In '97 R Mondavi hosted a 30yr retrospective of his Cabs (sans '84-85) in Denver. The first one (he claimed that it was his first "released" vintage) was '67, and was drinking wonderfully then. While there may have been "test batches" of Cab from him before, I think that he missed the '66 vintage.

Just a side-note, Hunt

Hunt: My guess is that your right about Mondavi, I think when he opened up it may have fume blanc, chenin blanc & gamay rose as he first commercial releases. I have a wine guide to California that mentions some of the wines of the 60s. It was a paperback by Signet, I also have a book by Bob Thomson from the early 70's coffee table style that dealt with the first wave I remember Yverdon and Cuvaison was in it. If i'm not mistaken 75 was Mondavi's first cab Reserve--although the 1970 came in Unfiltered & Unfined.

71 & 72 were so years and people like Chapallet made good 73s but 1974 was a break out year. I thought 70 was the better vintage. When I visited California, I'd hit all the wineshops & built a nice stock of cabs from 66-74 for tast> >

Hunt

One of the cool things about cellartracker is that registered users can check winebid 12-month averages for wines, the '66 BV GdlT was $120.75. Seller ( and buyer) both pay a premium to winebid, and of course questionable provenance would severely reduce bids.

Phelps had been buying fruit from the Backus Vineyard for quite awhile - since the 1970s anyway. They finally bought the vineyard a few years ago, and the wine is now their flagship. It's 100% Cabernet, and the 2001 I tasted at the winery with Ian & Jacquie was magnificent! Unfortunately, it was also $150. :^(

Tom S

Poor Joe Phelps has to operate on only a 500% mark up-----did one of his construction jobs go sour?

I had reservations for Mustards(1984? 49er won super bowl) when the lady giving the tour asked me if I want to have potluck dinner with Joe. I said sure, thinking one day I'd do a book. Well I got there and Joe wasn't there but I was kibitzing with some ladies who worked on the crew, dinner was for the all the workers, cellar rats, tour guides. About half way through the meal when people got up to grab a new dish, I saw the lady who invited me ask the two ladies adjacent to me to find another seat. We had a very nice talk and had a nice time afterwards.

I was flying the next day--after all I was 5-6 with a 56inch waist, food stains on my shirt, a scraggily beard, long hair. I was not anyone's prize. The lady was an attractive pr person, so I new Parker but I stayed clear of his business just passing along messages like" he(Parker) didn't review my cab, why?I" Other then a rather spare compilation of my ratings on wines tasted 1978-1982 that sold in the low teens, I was of no use to the Phelps, the store I worked for had limited allocations of Eisele, Backus & Insignia and the owner did not buy the rest of line in protest. Almost all the time I had to forgo wines allocated at 1/2-2 cases. The store would rather allocated wines go to customer & not down my gullet. But when my appointment was setup by the wholesaler, it was made clear that I was just weekend help and not the buyer. They were left to find out for themselves how loaded and insignifigent I was at that time.

Anyway, thanks to my new friend I got to have dinner with the lady, her kids & Bruce Neyers in a French nouvelle place near Fisherman's walk.

I haven't tasted the newer ones, but still have a few of the Phelps' vintages from the previous ownership of the vineyard languishing away. I've resisted getting the newer ones, as I only get -10% off retail. Maybe when I hit the lottery!!!!

Hunt

So-o-o, you got to write a chapter for that book after all, albeit a different chapter, than the one you had intended... ;-)

Hunt

Other than berating you over the contents of your celler there are two primary user on-line wine auctions. Wine Commune and WineBid.com. The major problem is that these sites are almost entirely populated by people in Cali which makes shipping almost prohibitive for single bottles (and even cases) to me on the East Coast. The other problem is unlike ebay, which despite rampant fraud due to it's size, these sites aren't policed at all. As a result, you're really taking a big risk buying things. Paypal will disavow all knowledge of the transaction and many of the sellers are doing things PayPal considers illegal.

It's not illegal, but you have to watch several things:

First the onus is on you to make sure you comply with the requirements for shipping into the buyers state and shipping from your own state. Second, you have to ship UPS or FEDEX by their rules. USPS will not permit wine shipment.

The other place to try to unload these things is to go to the "for sale" section of some of the other forums (for example Wine Spectator and eRobertParker both have them) and see if you can raise interest in there (although you're likely to get more ribbing about your wines especially if you overprice them).