I was recently chatting with a wine merchant friend of mine and he mentioned that he receives upwards of 100 spreadsheets of wine for sale from private sellers a week! Like so many wine sellers or buyers the first port of call is to a merchant, why not just go back to the trusted well. Valuing wine cellars is labor intensive and to do it properly requires an understanding of what makes a wine valuable in the first place. When we look at cellars we input all the drivers of value and analyze what might create demand. The provenance of the wines, where are they stored, the performance, have they appreciated or depreciated since release, the quality of the vintage, production size, reputation of the producer, the length of the drinking window, is it opened or closed and critical reviews. The current price, retail and wholesale as well as auction price, one could argue, should reflect the inputs at the end of the day, but like all markets, there has to be a buyer and there should be a price they are willing to pay. So, for a merchant to make a margin and sell it on, are you going to be offered the best price?The wider net one can cast the more interest and insight there will be, but that too is time consuming and there is always information the seller will never know, i.e. the other private clients, restaurants and sources of demand the merchant has. There are specialist retailers and auction houses that have the respect of producers as well as major collectors that do a good job of bringing together interested parties. But here too there is a price to be paid to engage with the market. Wine is a funny asset it has so many inputs that can influence its value and at the end of the day if not well looked after it goes to zero, vinegar my friends. I have been working on a fantastic product to help wine lovers, collectors and connoisseurs maximize their time with their wine and I think it is a problem solver and a life saver for wine. So what do you do if you own wine, your client owns wine or you just know a friend or colleague that could use a helping hand? Currently the most widely used inventory management system is Cellar Tracker with over 375,0000 users. The platform is community based and can provide a well organized data set that unfortunately you still have to manage. Of course the big daddy of price discovery is Wine Searcher, with 54,000 merchants and over 7 million price points it searches out wines on sale from retailers around the globe and averages the price by region. There are also various new sites to help you remember your wines such as Delectable and Vivino which then connect you to information on them. Of course thanks to the phone and it's camera, if you want to try and buy the wine you just had on holiday or in another state you can always try Drizly, Drync or Wine.com or of course your local retailer.After three years of looking at the market, analyzing collections and buying and selling wine for clients, while this may sound self-serving I truly believe independence and actionable data serve the consumer, the producer and most importantly, the wine, best. So give it a go if you are in the market to sell but know a little friendly advice, some analytics, combined with market insight, can find you the cash you are looking for among your wine racks.
