What to expect if you were to sell your collection?

[Andrew_A_r_n_t_f_i_e_l_d]

Try Heritage. I’ve sold through them a number of times. Depending on the total value of the consignment, you can negotiate the seller’s commission. I’ve paid 7.5%, and for a very large collection I’m confident you can negotiate an even lower rate.

Plus, settlement is 6 weeks post auction.

What is considered"very large"?

Clarification: I’ve sold non-wine collectibles through Heritage where the seller’s commission is negotiable depending on the value of the consignment.

I’ve received mailers from Heritage with info about consigning wine, and IIRC there is no seller’s commission on wine consignments. That might depend on the value of the consignment, but you could contact them and ask.

There’s also this thread from a few years ago:

Acker Merrall vs HDH auction experience as seller

[vincentD]

I’ve sold wine through Heritage a few times, I can confirm that there are no seller’s commission

[Bob_Hoelting]

On the matter of taxes, wouldn’t storage fees count as deductible against any gains?

[Travis_Fantz]

I didn’t think about Heritage or wine.com
Either way, not considering fees, it seems that the estimates that were given were met in auction.
I never bought the wine to make a profit, I just wouldn’t want to lose a lot of money on it if I went through with it.

I probably have 80-90% of all receipts for the wine. I don’t buy cases of wine, I usually get 2-6 bottles of each thing. So I wouldn’t have any case lots, but there would be horizontals and verticals of producers.

Does anyone have experience with Brentwood? I believe they are located near Portland.

[kgottehrer]

I sold a bunch of wines from my collection a couple of years ago and a couple of thoughts.

A lot of folks when selling wine are focused on buyer’s commission (good for seller) vs seller’s commission (bad for seller) when I was really only focused on the overall commission. Some certainly feel differently but my feeling was and remains that folks that were purchasing the wine I was selling were generally sophisticated enough to take any Buyer’s premium into account in determining the price they were willing to offer for a wine. So even if the Seller had zero commission with Auction House A but the Buyer’s commission at Auction House A was greater than the overall commission at Auction House B (which had some Seller’s commission), in most cases I would net more with Auction House B.

Reputation of the selling auction house will also likely play a role in how much money a Seller is able to realize. If an auction house has a reputation for selling bad bottles, doesn’t do appropriate diligence on inventory they bring in, etc., it’s likely to have a negative effect on attracting buyers and depress the amount that a buyer is willing to spend on a bottle. When I chose the auction house I ultimately went with in selling from my collection, they had a higher commission than one of the other auction houses that I was speaking with, but a better reputation which factored in my decision.

[Yao_C]

Does anyone have experience with Brentwood? I believe they are located near Portland.

Do you mean Brentwood Wine Company? That’s a sister company to Benchmark and they should both be in Napa. I’ve bought from them before, with the fulfillment taking place through Benchmark’s systems

[Chris_Peterson]

unless you have weird laws in America, its capital gains… You’ve bought an asset, you’re now selling an asset, your tax liability is calculated based on the capital appreciation of the asset…

So you have to maintain the paper trail of all your wine purchases over the last decades to justify appreciation/depreciation of every single bottle?

It’s not that hard. I have every wine currently in my cellar in a spreadsheet, with how much I paid per bottle including tax and shipping.

[Chris_Peterson]

The sale would count as income?

If you lost money overall, even though it’s income, you shouldn’t have to pay tax on it since you didn’t ‘gain’ anything?

Capital gains income, 28% rate (if longer than a year). Can’t deduct losses unless you bought for investment purposes, which in the scenario of selling the remainder of a personal cellar seems unlikely to be able to justify.

If you die the basis in the wine updates to today’s values, so there shouldn’t be any taxable gain if these wines are sold upon your death. I was recently the Executor in a Will, so I’ve been dealing with this personally for the last two years.

Chris

[Mattstolz]

unless you have weird laws in America, its capital gains… You’ve bought an asset, you’re now selling an asset, your tax liability is calculated based on the capital appreciation of the asset…


the only exemption I can think of to that that would make it income is if you were trading wine professionally, like a stockbroker/day trader.

lol you must be new to talking about alcohol laws in America.

[RMann]

I would expect to be dead

[RMann]

Someone above claimed that they received 90% of the expected market value of their cellar. It seems to me that would be possible only if an auction house charged no sellers fee AND refunded part of their buyers fee to the seller – e.g. buyers fees are usually 20% plus so at least 10% of that would have to be refunded to the seller to get up to an expected valuation of 90%.

To be clear, my net was 90% of the value provided to me by Winebid, which valued each bottle at the proposed opening bid. I didn’t compare these opening bids to the market value for each bottle, but I agree that they must have been systematically lower by an amount equal to the buyer’s premium. Had everything sold at the opening bids, my net would have been 84% of the total value provided by Winebid. Because some stuff received multiple bids, my net worked out to be 90% of the cellar estimate. Again, I’m sure that it was a lot less than 90% of “market”.

Thanks for the shout-out and clarification JM. And lots of great comments to OP. At the end of the day, Wine-Searcher provides retail prices (but not what things actually sell for after discounts), CT is great but primarily self-reported community based buy prices. Official actual appraisals (mostly used for insurance purposes) are expensive and sometimes massage the values for their intended purposes. All of the well known auction houses will be glad to provide a free estimate of value of what they think they can get you for your wines, and each has a slightly different method of charging seller’s commissions, or buy-in/listing/marketing/photo/shipping costs, etc. But auction is probably the best way to get the most actual real money for your wines, from any of the established and reputable houses. And there is a healthy trade for lesser-known/less popular regions, less popular vintages, etc. You may not get what you paid for, but you will get good money back.

[Chris_Seiber]

Russ, Russ, he’s RMann . . .

[RMann]

Russ, Russ, he’s RMann . . .

LOL that’s been a good long time nickname. When I used to travel a lot, I would be “RMann in the field,” or “RMann in Japan,” etc…

[Philip_G]

I sent a list of wines to Benchmark and they gave an offer about 40% below what I valued them at. Vinfolio came in at about market value to sell through fixed auction with 15% selling fee and free shipping. The wines all sold at or above their offered pricing.

[MikeL238]

I sent a list of wines to Benchmark and they gave an offer about 40% below what I valued them at. Vinfolio came in at about market value to sell through fixed auction with 15% selling fee and free shipping. The wines all sold at or above their offered pricing.

Vinfolio has an auction? Or did you mean Winebid? You are right about Benchmark. Their valuation was WAY below my estimated value.

[Philip_G]

I sent a list of wines to Benchmark and they gave an offer about 40% below what I valued them at. Vinfolio came in at about market value to sell through fixed auction with 15% selling fee and free shipping. The wines all sold at or above their offered pricing.

Vinfolio has an auction? Or did you mean Winebid? You are right about Benchmark. Their valuation was WAY below my estimated value.

It’s fixed price but I think they called it fixed price auction or something like that. They price things at the high end and things seem to sell.

[MikeL238]

I sent a list of wines to Benchmark and they gave an offer about 40% below what I valued them at. Vinfolio came in at about market value to sell through fixed auction with 15% selling fee and free shipping. The wines all sold at or above their offered pricing.

Vinfolio has an auction? Or did you mean Winebid? You are right about Benchmark. Their valuation was WAY below my estimated value.

It’s fixed price but I think they called it fixed price auction or something like that. They price things at the high end and things seem to sell.

Good stuff. Their customer service has been terrible so I’ve stopped buying from them. And you are right about prices being at the high end.

[Mark_C_Johnson]

I am a WineBid.com fan boy. As much as I hated selling my wine, the circumstances sorta forced it. I had aprox. 3700 bots at Wine Bank. This was Feb 2020 and I was going to travel to SF to ship many bottles back to Honolulu and sell the rest. Guess what, Covid. Not wanting to travel and not wanting to continue paying storage fees, I sent a spreadsheet to Elizabeth at WineBid. She agreed to take the wine and they even had a no-fee pickup.

It took just over a year but all my wine sold through with a few exceptions. Some observations. The Burgundy and collectable French wines did very well. CA mid 2000 pinots eventually sold but at a discount to what I paid. Oddball Euro wines sold at reasonable prices.

All in all, I was happy with the experience, glad about the money achieved, but sad about some bottles sold. 1999 Mag of DRC Echezeaux!

BTW, no financial interest other than the wines they sold for me which was months ago. Great customer service.

Aloha,
Mark

[Mike_S]

I have received my best prices from Spectrum

[Howard_Cooper]

I probably have 80-90% of all receipts for the wine.

Organize your receipts. You (or your heirs) will want them to prove basis. I recommend putting your wine in CellarTracker (if it is not already there) and put basis numbers in CellarTracker. Your basis generally includes not only what you paid for the wine but also sales tax, shipping costs, tariffs, etc., that you paid for the wine.