#winebid

I decided to take the plunge into the auction market.  Not in the traditional sense, but in a Web 2.0 kind of way.  Using WineBid.com, against the recommendations of several vocal WineBerserker forum members, I purchased several bottles of wine in the auction that ended on 4/22/12.

So why an auction?  Difficult question with a shockingly easy answer -- I wanted to try to find older vintages of good to great wine at a value.  Not a discount per se, but at an average or better-than-average price.  

How do I determine if any given bottle of wine is available at a fair, or hopefully better than fair, price?  I checked the average price paid for the wine on Cellar Tracker.  On top of that I also had to be unable to find the wine for purchase directly from a traditional retailer or the winery direct.  I made the assumption that these checks and balances would be enough to ensure a moderate level of success.  Easy enough so far?

So how did I choose the wines to bid on?  Well that was really tough to do.  Turns out there is a lot available on WineBid and no real easy way to start -- other than to jump right in and browse.  So after a little bit of reading on WineBerserker and some research on CellarTracker I decided that a beautiful bottle of Bedrock Lorenzo's Heirloom blend from 2008 was the prize I needed to have.  Only problem is it didn't pass the checklist.  The bid price?  $40.  Average price the CT community paid?  $34 and change.

So I moved on to the next wine, which turned out to be a Zin blend from Ridge.  The 2007 Lytton Springs was a steal at $30 versus the CT average of $30.28 gave me the thumbs up for the "at-value" test, albeit barely.  I also couldn't find the wine direct from a retailer.  So I pulled the trigger on two bottles.

What happened next?  I won.  And then I discovered the enormous amount of fees that get attached.  A 15% Premium & Insurance fee plus $5.22 in taxes took the amount to $74.52.  Roughly $37/bottle.  Not the best deal, but after not terrible.  I haven't got the bill for shipping yet, but I imagine I'll be up around $45/bottle when all is said and done.  Not perfect, but good.  I'm not disappointed.