I used to buy a lot of wine from them until they stopped shipping to Texas.
Same for me. Many other auction houses and retailers have figured out how to ship to mores states, but not K&L. It’s almost as though they don’t want the extra potential business.
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Echo that they are a quality institution.
If you’re looking for Bordeaux, though, you will get far better deals elsewhere. No idea why their Bordeaux gets bid up so much.
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I’ve not been following KL auctions for long, but I’ve noticed that lot size greatly impacts what the final deal tends on looking like… IE smaller lot sizes go for higher bottle prices than larger lot sizes. I think this make sense, but if you’re used to buying bordeaux in a case the deals aren’t as frequent here.
Since K&L only ships to a limited amount of states - has anyone tried to ship the wine to a FedEx location (such as a Staples or FedEx shipping store) and pick up there? I live in Massachusetts but only a couple of miles from the New Hampshire border and they ship to NH. Wondering if anyone has done something some thing like this?
Why would poxed Chablis have anything to do with the consignor?
Never had a bad experience with them. Fairly priced and have a large selection
Unlikely, but in case they had done some color analysis of all their white burgs (all bottles in the lot were variants of honey-colored) and happened to sell off only those bottles. Maybe silly, but it was just in a casual conversation with one of the sales guys.
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K&L recently increased their buyer’s premium from 5% to 10%. I didn’t see any notification about this increase, I noticed the hard way, in the receipt on an auction lot I won.
Still low compared to most houses but for me it constitutes another brick in the wall (with shipping hassles the largest impediment).
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I can not speak for buying Older Bordeaux but I have been a seller to K&L(High end Cabs & Pinot’s) and they are easy to work with.
Since I am in LA, I drop them off at the Hollywood store which is only 20 min from where the wine storage facility is located.
A person from the store comes out to look at them and count the bottles and sends me an email as to confirmation.
I guess in terms of provenance, it is only as good as the person who sells and the person inspecting the wines when they arrive at the K&L store.
I used to do this all the time. I used FedEx office. Works Great!
I used to buy a lot from these guys. But buyer beware. They keep dropping states they ship to and it becomes a big hassle to get your wine. You think they would grandfather you in when they stop shipping to your state but they don’t. I had back and forth negotiations with them. They eventually shipped some to my state, others I drove 7 hours to LA to pick up but I had to pay taxes. That was like $800 in taxes. It looks like I’m going to have to drive to New Mexico to pick up the rest.
I live in MD and have them ship to a FedEx in NW DC. Shipping is very reasonable, and I ship priority overnight. It used to be a great deal when they weren’t required to pay the insane DC sales tax (>10%.) it usually worked out to less tax than shipping charge. They sadly now charge tax to ship to DC but you should check on your end. Find out if they are charging tax and figure it in to your cost calculation.
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I’ve complained about KLs shipping a good bit over the years, but you’re right, getting worse! LOL- what’s the point of shipping to only 7 random states? Why bother at all. Weird.
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It still blows my mind they don’t ship to Texas.
Move to North Dakota. You’ll be all set 
Simple advice for anyone buying wine at auction- read the condition notes. If you are reading a lot of notes, don’t buy the bottle!
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i buy from them all the time - and opt for pickup as i’m local to the los angeles location - always had a great experience with K&L!
I can totally understand why a booming, at capacity business would scale back from peripheral unprofitable business. Here it’s legal threats, licensing fees (and limitations?*), the hassles and risks of shipping cutting deep into margins, with the out-of-their-control mistakes of shippers reflecting poorly on them.
I see the winery side a bit. How much effort to get shipping right in regards to weather. Even Berserker Day or club shipments that are “all at once” in cooler parts of the year aren’t that simple. There’s often regional issues, so you have to segregate the packages by region, track the weather and send the wines out at a few different times. I could go on and on. The type of person who will harangue you to violate your policy and ship at an unwise time and assure you they’ll assume the risk are pretty much guaranteed to go after you on social media when the inevitable happens.
Fees to ship to a state mean you have to sell a certain amount to break even. Not sure if retailers have the same cap as the BS Gallo Wine Institute template many states adopted, where you can get fined and lose your license to ship to a state if you ship above a certain amount. Imagine having to work within such a bracket for each state, when you get punished for having too low sales and have to turn away business if demand becomes too high.
I see a lot of small, new wineries wanting to get their name out, ship to everyone interested, have everyone who wants to try their wines. Then they see what they’re facing and/or what they’ve had to deal with, and reconsider the idea of shipping to most states.
With K&L auctions being so popular, do hammer prices suffer at all from limiting where they ship? That’s got to be under 2% of potential actual customers. Consider their physical locations are wealthy areas, where the bulk of their loyal customers are. and who are most likely to buy at a premium over market.
Then there’s storage. Locals can pick up or utilize their local delivery. If you’re holding for seasonal delivery, that’s a lot of cost to them, and a constraint, when they are operating at capacity.
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