(Shhhhh… These people pay more for a pizza, if it is cut into more slices.)
I don’t mind 11 bottle lots at all. I’ve bought quite a few and never had any bad experiences. I guess if you’re the kind of person who buys a case and gives up on the back of a single bottle you didn’t like, then you’re probably mostly into quick-fix,high octane thrills anyway so it probably just didn’t float your boat;-)
Seriously though; there can be many reasons someone wouldn’t want to keep the rest of the case. It could be that it’s closed down atm, or that they didn’t like the style. Whatever it’s down to, I don’t mind picking up the rest of the case, providing it looks correct.
(the case in the OP excepted of course, given the circumstances)
Could be tried one 15 years later or more and said this is good but the money I could get at auction is better.
Depends on context, really. There are 11 bottle lots I’ve veered away from. And there are 11 bottle lots that were screaming deals – for example, an 11 bottle lot of 2005 red Chassagne that was put up for sale like 7 years after the vintage, when anybody should have known it would be shut down hard. Somebody probably opened a bottle, found it charmless, sent it to auction. I got it for next to nothing. The bottles look in perfect shape, and I fully expect this wine to be fantastic in several more years when the 2005s are open.
I avoid 11 bottle lots because I don’t have the cellar room to keep the breadth of wine I want at the case size. I almost never buy more than 6 of anything, no matter how good. There’s a lot of wine out there and I like to try a lot if it.
That said, I do look at 11 and 5 bottle lots with some skepticism though not as much as a mass of singles of the same wine, some of which have issues and some which “don’t”. It really means it was a case or two of the same purchase and they don’t want the stigma of “signs of seepage” for the whole lot if it was 11 or 12 bottles.
Knowingly sending a bad wine to auction = bad karma
You learn that your 1989 Ducru has taint issues and send it to auction. Okay because this issue is common knowledge and the consumer can make an educated decision to avoid.
A wine gets delivered to your front porch in Austin in July while you are on vacation. You sample a bottle and confirm it is cooked. You send it to auction. Bad karma.
Be kind. Don’t knowingly recirculate bad wine without some buyer beware.
This is a riot. Like the 14th floor IS the 13th floor but because we don’t put a number on it it’s all good.