Interesting ad on Craigslist

I came across this when searching for wine storage units. Its a little out of my price range but I thought our Indiana residents, Winger, Platt, and Lipton, might want to be aware of this opportunity!!!

Bordeaux and California Wine Cellar Collection - $25000 (Indiana)

I am offering for sale, 330 3/4 liter bottles of red Bordeaux wine and 39 3/4 liter bottles of red California wine. The collection begins with the 1988 vintage and contains wines from each of the first growth chateaus and also contains several interesting verticals. The wine has been stored in my passive wine cellar where the relative humidity stays between 58 an 80 percent. The cellar temperature fluctuates annually from a low of 56 to a high of 63 degrees F. These conditions are consistent with or better than what I have seen at many properties in Bordeaux.
All of the fill levels are high and the labels are in very good condition. I am not interested in breaking up the collection. I purchased much of the wine in France and many of the bottles are in their chateau wood cases, chateau wood display boxes, or chateau travel boxes.
My asking price for the entire collection is $25,000.
Please email for list


For those interested in replying, the ad can be found on Craiglist

At an average price of $68 per bottle, I guess there aren't a significant number of first growths in the collection.

Interesting, Mike, that this person chooses to advertise his collection through Craigslist rather than going through a more traditional auction house (or even Winebid or Winecommune). It suggests to me either: a) this person is not terribly wine-savvy or b) there are some problems with the wines that this person is trying to hide. In either case, I seem to not have $25K to hand at the mo that I can blow....er... spend on a cellar of wine.

Thanks for the chuckle!
Mark Lipton

Thanks Mike.

Bill, Mark, and Ryan, I'm in for $50. If you guys can cover the rest between you, we can split the cellar between the four of us. I'm even willing to take one less bottle.

Sounds like some Steve Hilbert odd lot cast-offs to me.

ok, for kicks, I sent an inquiry to the seller for a wine list.

Here's the spreadsheet

Well, to be accurate, one would have to go through an value all of those wines, and since there's no way in hell I'm buying in Indiana, I won't spend the time. There's a few extremely expensive wines (1996 Lafite, Mouton,. 2K Mouton). And some moderately expensive (Clinet, Opus, etc). But there's a load of second wines of not top chateaux, offvintages, etc. And quite a few wines I'd probably value at $10 or less. From a purely financial standpoint it's possible there are enough of the Firsts, things like 03 Montrose, etc to bring average up to $68, But there's lots of dross in there that most of us wouldn't want. That kinds of unfocused collection demands major discounting before any sensible party would buy.

I do think it was actually worth it for Steve to ask if interested. Like Mark, I don't have an extra $25K to spend on wine. But that's what syndicates are for. The problem with this list is that it's so disjointed that a syndicate split is tough.

Well, to be accurate, one would have to go through an value all of those wines, and since there's no way in hell I'm buying in Indiana, I won't spend the time. There's a few extremely expensive wines (1996 Lafite, Mouton,. 2K Mouton). And some moderately expensive (Clinet, Opus, etc). But there's a load of second wines of not top chateaux, offvintages, etc. And quite a few wines I'd probably value at $10 or less. From a purely financial standpoint it's possible there are enough of the Firsts, things like 03 Montrose, etc to bring average up to $68, But there's lots of dross in there that most of us wouldn't want. That kinds of unfocused collection demands major discounting before any sensible party would buy.

I do think it was actually worth it for Steve to ask if interested. Like Mark, I don't have an extra $25K to spend on wine. But that's what syndicates are for. The problem with this list is that it's so disjointed that a syndicate split is tough.

In addition to your very astute observations, Dale, I will note that the Bdx selection tilts heavily toward '98 left bank and '00. The former I don't have much enthusiasm for, and the latter is a year in which I'd only favor certain Chateaux that tend toward less ripe wines. And then there's the issue of money...

Mark Lipton

I did a quick restricted scheme for estimating the value: include 1st Growths, 2nd Growths, Opus One, and anything he has 6 or more bottles of. Taking the lowest price of the "narrow results" from Winezap (which is a decent proxy for the median of the full results), this adds up to a bit less than $21k. For just 1st Growths, 2nd Growths, and Opus One however, it'd only be just under $12k.

I did a quick restricted scheme for estimating the value: include 1st Growths, 2nd Growths, Opus One, and anything he has 6 or more bottles of. Taking the lowest price of the "narrow results" from Winezap (which is a decent proxy for the median of the full results), this adds up to a bit less than $21k. For just 1st Growths, 2nd Growths, and Opus One however, it'd only be just under $12k.

Well done, Ryan. Keep in mind, though, that "fair market value" for these wines probably shouldn't be determined by retail since it's unlikely that provenance and storage issues are as settled with these wines. For instance, I'd never pay full retail for a wine at auction, no matter how many assurances are provided.

Mark Lipton

You guys aren't very good at this. You're not approaching it with true entrepreneurial spirits and you're defaulting to being wine geeks (i.e., actually contemplating drinking the stuff).

Naw, what you do is hardball the guy, insult the inventory, trash talk the wines and vintages, kvetch and whinge, etc., until you talk him down to a more reasonable amount. (He'll take it; he's not personally invested in this stuff.)

Then, when you get it at a steal, you break it up into assorted small lots, so there'll be one good one that attracts people like shiny tinfoil, mixed in with all the inconsequential crap. That way you get top dollar out of your good stuff and make people who want the good stuff pay for the crap that comes with it.

Then you hire one of those guys that write the over-inflated pneumatic ga-ga creative proseology for all those newsletters and tell him to go breathless and purple, and then you e-mail it everywhere! (e-mails are free, remember, and your odds are with you you'll get some response; you don't have to be Nigerian for that)

Then if you end up with a lot of crap you can't unload, you go the tax route by donating what you can't drink (as in won't drink) to all these charity events and take those tax donation deductions!!! (You'll probably have to do some artful embroidery here, but chances are you won't get noticed, much less get caught.)

As the final fallback, take the awful bottles to your wine tasting group meetings to get rid of them. That way you don't have to take your good stuff to share, you get rid of your bad stuff, and you can continue leaching off the schlubs who brought their good stuff. If your wino friends complain, you just give them a line about how you thought maybe it would be interesting to try this blah blah blah, or you have to keep your mind open blah blah blah, or "they can't all be 100 point wines, you know!" Or tell them they're just anti-flavor elitists. Or tell them Brad Kane raved about it; they'll understand that.

Do I have to do everything for you guys?