The 2021 VDP Grosser Ring - Mosel Wine Auction Results Thread

Good afternoon everyone! Starting tomorrow morning at around 7AM EST, this thread is where Brian Stotter and I will bring you real time results from the 2021 VDP Grosser Ring auction as it happens. This thread will serve as a record of sale prices for quick reference so that you do not have to review the entire video- plus of course you get our brilliant commentary and feedback from other Berserkers who may be there in person, and certainly from those of us who placed bids. If you are participating in the auction in any way, or just have questions or thoughts- chime in as we go through the morning. The general format is that Brian will post results along with any commentary, and then I will come in after and on a by-producer basis compare the results to prior year, recent trends or anything else that pops to mind.

The 2021 VDP Grosser Ring auction promises to be an exciting one. It certainly has been very difficult to predict with any feelings of certainty (though in a few hours we will find out how good my predictions were!)

There will be a total of 66 lots offering 40 different wines in various formats from 0.375mL to 6000mL.

It is the year of Kabinett - and just at a time when the wines are extremely popular again. There are more Kabinetts in this auction than any auction I have witnessed.

It is also a year very different in the overall composition of offerings. Each year the list of wines does vary, but 18 of the 40 wines being offered at the 2021 auction were not sold in the 2020 auction.

Finally- there is the reality of ever-increasing access to the auctions by the general public, and coming on the heels of the hottest secondary market period in what has been a near solid bull market run since the mid 1990s. In almost every other aspect of the fine wine market, higher liquidity and greater access have been a key driver of growth. And now the famed annual German wine auctions are joining the bandwagon- changing things forever and with great speed.

From a market standpoint, I think there are two key auctions to watch tomorrow,

1. 2020 Egon-Muller Scharzhofberger Riesling Spatlese

The 2019 Spatlese was perhaps the greatest shock in the auction- despite huge ratings and a storied history, the Spatlese- the first Scharzhofberger Spatlese Muller had sent to auction since the 2014 vintage- sold for 221 Euro- or 20 Euro less than the annually released Kabinett Alte Reben. So many of us wish we had bid for more bottles at that price! I personally think it is the annual availability of the Kabinett that had it attracting more interest- from an investor or collector perspective it is a more attractive purchase because it is always there. That said, I expect bidding for the Spatlese to be intense this year on the expectation that it will be a relative bargain. In a world where the Kabinett Auction is going for 220-240 Euro and the Auslese is going for over 1,000 Euro in 750 mL, then it seems logical that Spatlese should fall in the 400-500 Euro range.

I am not sure the 2020 will reach that high, but it could very well smash through the 221 Euro record price it set last year. The one factor that could hinder that a bit is availability. Last year, Muller offered 600 bottles each of the Kabinett and Spatlese (as compared to their usual 1,200 bottles of Kabinett in recent years.) But in 2020 there will be 900 bottles of Kabinett and 600 bottles of Spatlese. At these price points that is a meaningful uptick in supply.

2. 2020 Willi Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Riesling Kabinett

I have talked, PMed and emailed with a great many people in the past 3-4 weeks about the upcoming auctions. The one thing we all have in common is that we want at least 4 bottles of this wine and are willing to pay over 100 Euros to get it. While Willi Schaefer’s wines have not hit the price points achieved by Muller and sometimes Prum at the auctions, on a percentage basis it is Willi Schaefer wines that have escalated the most in price in recent years.

Willi Schaefer’s Spatlese Auction has gone up 98% in hammer price over the past 5 years- with a 73% increase just from 2018 to 2019. The strongest 5 year performers among Spatlesen/Kabinetts at auction after Schaefer are Egon Muller’s Kabinett with a 51% increase and Fritz Haag Spatlese with a 50% increase.

And while we who love Willi Schaefer are virtually a cult following, within our merry band is a hard core fan base for the Kabinetts that is about as devoted a group as any you will find in the world of wine.

Here the quantities are going to be very high compared to last year. In last year’s auction there were 360 bottles of Spatlese originally offered with the wine selling at 123 Euro. Schaefer typically ends up adding a lot of bottles during the auction to keep the final price moderate (sometimes up to 150 or so additional bottles), but I do not have any information on how many additional bottles were issued last year. Even so, in 2020 there will be 600 bottles of Kabinett originally offered and 420 bottles of Spatlese - in total nearly triple the number of bottles of Spatlese offered last year.

But even so, with the world’s love for Willi Schaefer and the power of FOMO (fear of missing out), I do think that the Kabinett will sell for over 100 Euro a bottle and will be within 20% of the sale price of the Spatlese.

Time will tell! We will see you here tomorrow, and if you would like to watch the live auction results for yourself- they are available on youtube. Just search for VDP Grosser Ring to find the live feed- the channel has already been set up. The auction is set to begin at 1PM local time in Germany, which is 7AM EST.

Cool thread. Thanks, Tom & Brian!

A bit of a to see your commentary on this Schaefer and the extent to which folks anticipate having a willingness to chase it. I just picked-up a bottle of the “regular” bottling of the same for $35. I’d ask if the auction wine is really that much better, but clearly the answer from you and others is “Yes!” Too rich for my blood, though.

Rumor in the streets from people in the know is that the regular Egon Kabi is better than the auction this year.

Maybe the people on the street are just trying to depress the auction price.

I’m not going to bet against Merlin’s predictions, but I’m certainly going to hope that the large quantities of Willi outweigh the buzz and FOMO and keep the price of the Kabi well below triple digits. We’ll know soon enough.

Trust me, no.

Yeah, so bummed not to throw out a large low-ball bid last year. Would have been great to get a whole case at that price! I did a more aggressive bid this year, but this will probably be the year it skyrockets and I get the minimum.

Count me on the list of big purchasers of this one. Unfortunately I also see it blowing through my large quantity, low ball bids and going straight to the max.

Excitement begins soon!

Well then. We’ll have to open them side by side and decide for ourselves!

I’m so excited to be in the office at 6am tomorrow livestreaming this.

Hell yeah! My no limit bids are in!

I’m looking forward to wines blowing through my max bids.

We will see.

It’s all good. The normal Schaefer GD Kabi is fabulous in 2019 and 2020, as it always has been, so there’s no suffering even if the auction wines blow through high estimates.

And that’s not my only target anyway.

BTW. huge thank you to Stephen Bitterolf and vom Boden. He has really reduced the friction for avid amateurs to partake and get wine that was prohibitively cumbersome in years past. Economics at work!!!

+1 here, carefully guided through the process even with the beyond modest volume I was looking for. Really impressed and grateful

FWIW I hope I am wrong in my prediction about the Kabinett, but what drives that prediction is the fact this is, I believe, the first Schaefer Kabinett to come to auction. If not it is certainly the first since the world started turning its attention to the German auctions and pushing up prices.

Then there is also the matter of the dramatic rise in prices of his wines at the Auctions despite his best efforts to dampen those price levels by offering a lot more bottles during the sale than were originally offered. When it comes to the Auctions- a producer is not required to offer all of the stock of a given wine for auction. The only requirement is that any stocks not sold at auction must always be sold for at least the auction price achieved. And so a producer has full control over the amount of supply that is actually sent to auction to set the permanent minimum price at which that wine may be sold by the trade. I have never met Christophe, but by reputation he cares very much about everyone who loves his wines having access- and that is evidenced by his expanding the available supply for sale during the auction itself. If he wanted to, he could have already taken many measures to grow his prices for the whole portfolio much faster than they are growing already.

As for auction wines being worth the money- if you were to go back in time about 10 years, the auction prices for most wines was not that much higher than the pricing for a producer’s comparable commercial offerings, and that premium was more than justified by the rarity factor.

If someone wins that magnum of Zilliken Eiswein and is looking for people to help them finish it, feel free to hit me up!

Great thread! I will attend in person and will try to add some flavor from the floor.
One other element to consider: 2021 is considered a very difficult vintage and enormous efforts have been required to bring in small quantities of healthy grapes with modest oechsle. JJ Prüm is still harvesting in in the Wehlener Sonnenuhr as we speak.

Some wine makers yesterday expressed a frustration that acidity levels are refusing to come down. I am sure the wines will turn out good but there is definitely a feeling this will be a weak vintage with very little Auslese and above available. So let’s see how that will affect demand at the auction!

Those should do quite well. Last year they offered 18 bottles of Eiswein Kabinett 1980 which achieved 350 Euro each.

Three mags of 1991 Eiswein should go well into four digits.

The tasting sequence for this morning! Pity (but very understandable) we don’t get to taste the Eiswein

How much does pricing strategy, then, come into play for various wineries when deciding how much quantity to offer?

And so a producer has full control over the amount of supply that is actually sent to auction to set the permanent minimum price at which that wine may be sold by the trade. I have never met Christophe, but by reputation he cares very much about everyone who loves his wines having access- and that is evidenced by his expanding the available supply for sale during the auction itself. If he wanted to, he could have already taken many measures to grow his prices for the whole portfolio much faster than they are growing already.

Maybe you’re referring to the “strategy” I was asking about above?

As for auction wines being worth the money- if you were to go back in time about 10 years, the auction prices for most wines was not that much higher than the pricing for a producer’s comparable commercial offerings, and that premium was more than justified by the rarity factor.

David Bueker, one of the most knowledgeable people alive on the topic of German Riesling IMHO, has often on this forum indicated his lack of interest in the premium for the auction wines. And as much as I am a fan of the auction wines- there is great merit in his contention, and a merit that is growing rapidly in footstep with recent pricing trends.

At their best, I find the auction wines to have a little extra subtlety than the commercial releases, but they are not universally “better” than the commercial releases on all measures. They are just different and a special little selection that the winemaker personally has chosen to single out. Schaefer’s Auction Rieslings can be magnificent, but I do not generally find they have the same volume as GD Spatlese #5, nor the cool beauty of GD Spatlese #10, or the intense white cherry of the Graacher Himmelreich Spatlese which is a personal favorite of mine. They are just different- and if one must call them superior I would say it is for their subtlety of detail. That counts for a lot, but it is not everything. And remember too that these wines are made in very small quantities. There is little room for error, they are made to need a long time to mature- which has its own risks, and they can often have very singular personalities. In fact, if I were to serve the Schaefer GD Spatlese Auction 2009 and 2010 blind to a group of people who had a lot of tasting experience with both vintages- I bet that most of them would think the GD Auction 2009 was a 2010 and the GD Auction 2010 was a 2009. Both are wonderful wines, but they are quite unique relative to their peers.

Roumier is a good comparison here. I have not been able to afford Roumier in any decent quantity since the 2006 vintage and I gave up entirely after 2010, but for many years I and a number of like-minded friends had access to the wines, and we drank them regularly. Roumier’s Musigny at its best is a real knockout and as good as it gets. And it is always very interesting- if not always an earth-moving experience. Interesting is okay at $125 a bottle (what I paid each for my six pack of the 1995)- but $10,000?!?! Worse still, sometimes it does not come out like you hope. Very little is made and it takes a long time to mature- those two factors together add a lot of risk to long term outcomes. Point being, among everyone I know who shares some depth of experience with Roumier with whom the topic has been discussed- there is a universal feeling that at its very best the Musigny is as good as it gets, but on the whole over time the Bonnes-Mares is a superior wine.

And so if you are able to have Roumier Musigny and German Auction Rieslings- you get to see something different that will on occasion take your breath away. But if you stick to Roumier Bonnes-Mares and Chambolle and commercially released German Rieslings you can and will still develop an intimate knowledge of the producer and enjoy the majority of potential good experiences that come with good cellaring. That is how I see it anyway.

I understand what you’re saying here. Sounds like the auctions allow for opportunity to geek-out in special ways, but it’s really not necessary to participate given the wide range of easily-attainable regular range offerings, unless you’ve already made your way through all of those. I know I’m over-simplifying things here, but I think I get what you’re saying. And if the auctions are more expensive, more cumbersome and/or burdensome than buying through normal channels, then those act as additional barriers.