Dr. Ben Ichinose's cellar up for auction

[Sarah_Kirschbaum]

thanks. So it appears he had appropriate temp control. No notation of humidity. And have the bottles been somewhere else for considerable time? Ullage is certainly affected by humidity. I assume he bought on release and was not a significant backfiller. Maybe this collection is just the “dregs,” though many expensive and rare dregs. Bottle appearance would keep me away.

Up to you, of course. But you are unlikely ever to find better provenance than this, including ex Chateau. Why do you care about label conditions? Some of the best cellars I’ve seen, with perfectly preserved wine, had label issues. Have you forgotten what real cellars look like, and been seduced by the false narrative of perfect everything? Real cellars are not perfect. Almost no one who builds a collection does so with resale impressions as their paramount concern. People can always find something to criticize.
I don’t speak for this collection, but I see nothing that would turn me off bidding.

there’s some confusion here. I never mentioned and don’t care about label condition. I didn’t even use the word label in my posts. I don’t like the ullage of many of the bottles and was wondering about provenance. Thats what i meant re bottle appearance—ullage. That’s all.

My mistake, sorry for misunderstanding what you meant by appearance.

I still stand by my belief that the fills as stated in the catalog don’t necessarily indicate storage issues in my experience. I’m with Larry Stein on this one.

**Edited to clarify: I don’t think there’s anything wrong at all in deciding an ullage of XX cm is more than you are willing to buy. That’s perfectly sound reasoning. I just don’t think the fact that there are a number of low fill bottles in this collection at this point casts doubt on the provenance or storage conditions.