Wine Auctions

Why bother with wine auctions?

There are many places to buy wine - by the bottle or glass in your favourite bar or restaurant, cellar doors, supermarkets, specialist retailers, wine clubs and all sorts of online or mail order plans. Perhaps you buy wine from a number of these already.

Advantages

The obvious one is that the wines are often cheaper. Discontinued stock, mislabeled stock, cancelled orders and overstocked lines are often disposed of via auction. Private individuals, deceased estates and collectors sometimes sell wine via auctions, either in the large auction houses or via Ebay.

Auctions can be the only way you can get aged wines. The costs of storage mean that most commercial operations just can't keep wine for extended cellaring. If you want to try some aged wine and don't feel like waiting for ten years to see what an superb aged riesling is all about auctions might be your best bet.

I love wine auctions because they are fun! I get satisfaction out of being the winning bidder, and waiting to try the wine.

Risks of online wine auctions

Of course there are risks involved with buying wine at auction but there are a few ways you can minimise those.

First, don't spend a fortune without some sort of guarantee. Wine is a notoriously variable product - even when kept in ideal conditions it can deteriorate in an unpredictable way, especially if given extended bottle age.

Before you register and bid you should take a few minutes to read the conditions of the service.

If you use Ebay you can view information about the seller including feedback from previous customers. This is a valuable safeguard if you are contemplating a substantial purchase. Ebay is a very large business. It is in their interest to maintain solid ethical standards. They rely on the power of the internet to do their and they are fully aware of how quickly a bad reputation could be spread via the internet and kill their business overnight.

Equally your payment on Ebay are through PayPal, a highly sophisticated payment system which has a first class reputation that they intend to keep.

There's always some action at Ebay. Check below to see the latest eBay wine auctions in Australia.