Sterling Wine Auctions Australia

Buying Wine through a specialist “live on Line” wine  auction house is the best way to drink bargains every day.

There are some tricks and techniques used by the old hands that can give you even better results

Firstly avoid old style silent bid auctions that require you to send in “tender style offers”.   There is no transparency in this process and you have no control over what you buy or the end price paid. Live on line Internet Auctions put you in charge and give you absolute control over prices paid and the wines you buy.

Firstly, there are few features of “live on line” bidding that are not well understood.  Lets look at the Auto bidding facility and how it can work for you.

You like the 1990 Penfolds Bin 28 and decide to put on a bid.  After logging on as a bidder you see the current bid is $25 per bottle. After several one dollar bids you become the highest bidder at $29 a bottle. Your bids screen shows you are the highest bidder at $29 and your “auto bid (shown in the next column is also $29).  This means if there is another bidder / buyer that wants the wine and bids $30 against you, the new bidder will beat you and be the highest bidder at $30.

Many bidders do not use the auto bid system to their advantage.  Lets say that you want this bottle of Bin 28 badly and are prepared to pay up to $40 a bottle.   Lets also say that you are too busy to sit and bid when the auction closes. By changing you bid up to $40 when you were the successful bidder at $29 would leave your successful; bid the same at $29 but the $40 figure goes into the auto bid column.  Your auto-bids are ONLY visible to you.  No one else can see or know how much you are prepared to spend.  If anther buyer now bids $30 dollars against your winning bid of $29….the
auto bid takes over. Effectively you and the auto bid system are bidding automatically against other bidders with $1 bids. The system then makes you the successful bidder at $31,  One dollar more than the $30 bid made by the other person. So until other bidders beat your $40 and take the bidding to $41 you are the winner. This means that when you put in your auto-bid you could pay as little as $29 but no more than $40 assuming other buyers push the bidding up to or beyond that point.

The live on line auction technology will always buy for you as CHEAPLY as possible with $1 bids above the other buyers.

This system is working for you 24 hours a day during the auction process and you can see exactly where you are up to, exactly where you are against other bids at any time.

Bidding backwards,  here is a useful little trick that can save time and fix mistakes.  Lets say you are bidding for the same bottle of Bin 28 1990,  this time you are desperate to win it and you have been out bid by someone who (without
your knowledge entered a secret auto bid of $45.) Your top bid was $40 so the new top bid is one dollar more at $41. The quickest way to ”aggressively” find the top bid is to go in hard with a big bid, say of $60.  Now the winning bid will be yours at $46 against an auto bid of $60. Lets say that the next day you decide that you don’t really want to pay up
to $60 for the bottle. At any time you can reduce your auto bid to just one dollar above your successful bid. So, you tick the bid box as you would when increasing your bid. But this time enter a figure of $47 which is one dollar above your winning bid of $46. Now you have bid your auto bid back from $60 to $47.

We believe that only Sterling wine auctions offers this facility which is the perfect way of fixing bidding errors when you have put in a wrong number or too many zeros! Some times it is the very simple tips that can be of most use. Many buyers pay more for the first offering in a group of wines that are the same type.  Have a look at the price realizations the first one or two lots in a bracket are always more expensive because bidding is concentrated on them.

Easy ways to save money.

If you are outbid on a bottle which is the first in a bracket or group, just move your interest and bid on another bottle near the middle or end of the group.  Select several bottles from the bracket for your wish list, even if you only intend buying just one.

When the close of the auction comes around look at the current bids on the wines on your wish list and bid on the lowest one. The big tip is to feel free to move you bids from one lot to another if you have been out bid.  You don’t have to stick to the same lots once you are outbid

Again simple and obvious,  buy bottles that are label damaged

On average label damage reduce the value of a bottle by over 20%.  Funny enough the label damage does not have any effect on the taste of the wine!

A little bit risky, but don’t completely disregard wines that have some ullage.  If a wine is VHS  (very high shoulder) and is over 20 years old there is a very good chance that the loss has been due to low humidity induced evaporation through the pores of the cork.

Yes corks do breath, but very slowly. Evaporation loss can be up as little as 1 milliliter per year, or about a teaspoon every 15 to 20 years. This evaporation does not mean that the wine is heat effected. A little risky, but well worth while in my opinion. Sterling has many customers who buy old Penfolds Grange to drink and have very high success rates with bottles that are VHS. The saving of 25 to 40% in dollars against the risk?

My educated guest would put to additional risk of poor quality of spoilage at about 10% or one lesser / spoiled bottle in ten….. you decide

The last of the obvious advice is a barrow that I have been pushing for years with very, very little success.

Try unpopular and unfashionable vintages.  Give it a go I guarantee that you will not be disappointed, if value and quality are an issue.

There are some problem vintages that should be treated very carefully. For example the 1991 offering from Bordeaux are mainly shockers.

Be careful with some wines from SE Australian from the Drought vintage of 1995.

Australian droughts can be very tricky when it comes to wine quality.  1983 was one of the worst drought years on record but 1983 Grange is seen as one of the best wines.

And of course,  just to throw you, 1995 was one of the Stella vintages from West Australia.

The message is clear and simple.

Don’t wipe off vintages that are not fashionable or unpopular, but do take care buy single bottles or small lots to make up your own mind. I have tried to put forward some simple suggestions which might help when addressing some complicated issues.

Feel free to phone me for more details.

Lynton Barber 0418 949 837 / 08 9388 9955

April 2006