Tuesday, December 25, 2012

How To Find Rare Wines For Sale

By Marisol Guy


In appraising rare wines for sale, auction houses use a number of criteria on which to base their prices. Availability, provenance, vintage and how the product has been stored all play an important part. A case which has not been stored properly loses its investment potential. More and more people are attending auctions today in the hopes of adding to their collections.

The vintage of a wine is considered important because the quality of grapes can vary from year to year according to the weather. Those grown in warmer climates tend to show less variation. Vintages are region specific and some people prefer vintages from hot years that are fruitier and higher in alcohol. Others prefer a wine from a cool year which is fresher, lighter-bodied and higher in acid. There are those people who believe that the importance of vintage is now debatable due to technological developments in wine making.

The question of availability arises because a limited amount of a vintage is produced in a year. As the bottles are consumed, so the supply becomes rarer and the price increases. The fewer the bottles available may mean that only a small amount of the vintage was produced in the first place or that it may be very old, or it may be a combination of these two factors.

The provenance of a wine is basically its case history. Simply looking at a bottle is not enough to establish where a chosen case has spent its life up to that point. A detailed history is the only way for the buyer to know that it has been properly stored for the correct period of time. Once it is spoiled through incorrect storage it can never recover.

Wine requires the correct storage to reach its full potential. The conditions in which the wine was stored, how long it was kept there and how much it may have been moved around all have a part to play. Heat, light and movement have adverse effects.

Some wineries use large-format bottles for wine. These bottles are supposed to slow down the aging process. Only a few of these are used for a particular vintage. They are therefore sought after by collectors.

Fraud is not unheard of in the rare-wine world and even the most knowledgeable collectors have been taken in over the years. Establishing provenance is a bit of a minefield and experience and knowledge can go a long way towards determining whether a wine is legitimate. Most auction houses go to great lengths to establish provenance as this increases their profits.

A discerning palate is helpful when tasting. There are tasters who are known for their ability to deduce the identity of a wine just by taste. These gifted tasters almost appear to have a library in their heads, extending to tiny vineyards in specific regions.

Auctions are a very popular way of sourcing wine for a collection today. Another popular choice is to shop for wine online. One can source rare wines for sale in this way. There are various categories used to narrow down a search, such as country, region, producer and vintage. This can save much time and effort.




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