PSA: Willamette Valley Winery Association Auction Zooms

The Willamette Valley Wine Auction is coming up August 5th, but next week there are a series of zoom presentations from all of the principals submitting auction lots. Each of the lots is 5 cases of a singular 2019 Pinot Noir, unlike any of the producers normal bottlings.

The auction itself is limited to trade, but consumers are very welcome to watch the zoom presentations. Anyone with interest in the auction lots can be paired with a trade member to bid on the consumer(s) behalf. The trade member takes care of arranging shipping and payment on the lots as well. It’s fairly common for groups of wine friends to bid on lots as a group and divide the lots among the group.

The lots are among the very best wines a producer makes(the Goodfellow lot is a from my favorite fermenter of 2019 Lewman Pinot Noir). And with only 5 cases, these are some of the very best and rarest wines produced in Oregon.

If anyone is interested in watching the zooms, I’ve posted the email from our WVWA contact below. There’s no obligation of any kind, it’s just an opportunity to hear commentary on some very unique 2019 wines by the producers themselves.

Here’s the WVWA email:

_The week of July 26–30, we’re hosting a series of virtual tastings featuring many of your favorite winemakers—and maybe even a few new ones to discover! As a leadup to our Willamette: The Pinot Noir Auction event debuting exclusive small-lot wines of the 2019 vintage, these winemakers and winery owners will each introduce their special wine to you during a lively one-hour discussion. They will also share what inspires them, what they’re feeling about the elegant, age-worthy 2019 vintage, and why they love the Willamette Valley.

All are welcome and you may attend as many sessions as you wish (no cost to attend). You can also view the full schedule here! The wines featured in these tastings are small-lot bottlings for our exclusive annual trade auction. If you want to learn more about how you can acquire them, contact us.

Individual sessions’ descriptions and lists of speakers can be found in the link to register for that session. Link to full schedule and all registration: https://www.willamettewines.auction/preview-week_

If you have an interest in the 2019 vintage in Oregon, or want to learn a little bit about a new producer in the Willamette Valley, then I hope these would be a good resource and a fun discussion of Willamette Valley wines. And would be awesome to have some Berserkers on the calls!

8 Likes

Very cool! Going to register for a couple of these.

+1!

Very cool. Thanks for sharing Marcus.

Now I need to find people who want to split a few cases of Goodfellow

4 Likes

Historically what do the cases usually go for, $1200 on the low end? I’m not in trade so never been able to access these types of events. One day…

Per this article in the 2019 auction, the average price per bottle of Chardonnay was $192 and Pinot Noir was $158, so ~$2,300 and ~$1,900 per case respectively. Though as I understand it, one is bidding on the entire 5 cases in each lot.

Maybe you should buy the whole lot then sell it on commerce corner in three packs. newhere [berserker.gif] neener

1 Like

Not gonna lie, something along those lines crossed my mind…

But that’s a bigger lump sum than I’d like to spend on a single wine and there’s still some upcoming purchases like the fall release for Marcus and Megan’s wines to take into consideration as well.

Though if there’s 9 other berserkers who each want a 6pk, this seems pretty achievable.

1 Like

Trade is mostly retailers?

-Al

1 Like

Redundant

Retailers and restaurants both, though I suspect only a handful of restaurants this year.

I do

Is this only open to trade in Oregon, or could say…a wine shop owner in Maine make a bid? I’m asking for a friend of mine [snort.gif]

It is open to all trade. However, the producer being bid must have distribution in the state the bidder is from. So your friend could bid on a Drouhin or Adelsheim lot, but not the Goodfellow lot.


To be paired with a retailer(and for our wines, I suggest an Oregon retailer as our distribution is very limited), please email Emily Nelson at emily@willamettewines.com

She is very responsive, and very easy to deal with(and deserves a lot of credit for making a remarkably complex event function very well. Especially under the current circumstances.

Thanks Marcus, Makes sense to me!

This is a very nice way to get something completely different.

Marcus,

So would the bottle price of the auction lot probably be more expensive than your Heritage wines based on the winning bid?

That is a heck of a question Doug. I don’t know for sure, but from a rarity standpoint, the auction lot is only 60 bottles total.

I would definitely be interested in a few bottles if the price is not too steep. [cheers.gif]

I’ll be curious to see who wins the lot.

Marcus, thanks for sharing.

If we can get a group together, I would be interested in the Goodfellow lot as well. I have a retail contact in Portland. I’ll ask if he can assist with the auction.

Regarding final pricing, I think that Rodrigo’s post upthread is a good starting point. Also, bottles from previous Willamette Winery Auctions appear at retailers and secondary auctions from time to time. In fact, there’s a few bottles on wine bid right now and there have been some examples on wine.com within the last few months. The recent bottles that I have seen have been between $80-150. I’m sure that the Goodfellow lot will garner some sharp interest, so I would wager that it will exceed the Heritage bottles.

Although a different organization and different auction format, the Salud summer auction concluded last week. For reference, 1 case lots began at $1,200 with a buy it now feature of $3,200. The Beaux Freres lot was purchased at $3,200, but the average 1 case lot hammered between $1,500-1,800.

James