The Auction Scene: Be Charitable, Buy Wine

All over the United States, charities use fine wine to lure contributors to auction events ranging from the well-known Napa Valley Wine Auction to the wildly successful Naples Winter Wine Festival, which raised $14 million in four frenetic hours of bidding last month.

 

[Napa Wine Auction 2007]

(Photo: (c) Jason Tinacci)

There are hundreds of fund-raising events staged across the country every year. Those auctions serve three distinct purposes: moving wine into the hands of collectors, allowing benefactors to be generous with a tax-deductible investment, and giving bargain hunters a chance to find a good deal.

One upcoming big event is the High Museum Atlanta Wine Auction, held March 27-29. Check out the website after March 1 for a full list of auction items. If you plan to attend, you might want to bone up on wine basics by attending a class at the Atlanta Wine School.

If art is a passion, check out the High Museum's permanent collection of old world treasures, including a personal favorite—Monet's "Autumn on the Seine, Argenteuil." Or, admire a visiting exhibit of 70 pieces of art from the Louvre in Paris, The Louvre and the Ancient World, which is on display through Sept. 7.

[Monet's Autumn on the Seine, Argenteuil]
(Photo: Courtesy of High Museum)

He wasn't a big wine guy, but Atlanta's Robert W. Woodruff knew a popular drink when he saw one. Woodruff was named chairman of Coca-Cola at age 33 in 1923 and oversaw the global rise of the best-known brand soft drink in the world. You can stay in Woodruff's former residence, a Craftsman-style cottage called Inman Park Bed and Breakfast.

I've been to a handful of charity events plus a couple of commercial auctions like the two upcoming sales on Feb. 8 at Sotheby's in London and New York. You'd better bone up on the wines you are interested in bidding on before you get caught up in the action. The pace can be unsettling and the prices can skyrocket for first-class Bordeaux and Burgundy bottles plus any other collectibles that are in high demand.

Play your cards right, however, and you could walk away with a fine wine at below-retail pricing. I dropped in on a Christie's auction house in Beverly Hills a few years ago, just to see what all the fuss was about. I never made it past the sign-up table, where bidders were issued catalogues and given their numbered bidding paddles. I did snag a glass of excellent champagne— apparently the hostess mistook me for a bona fide bidder—but I retreated without even a token bid.

I made my biggest auction score last January in Oakland (of all places) where a local auction house, Clars Auction Gallery—better known for furniture, jewelry and artwork sales—was featuring the contents of a cellar from a Silicon Valley millionaire who'd met an untimely death, along with the stock from a shuttered restaurant.

There were lots of cool wines up for sale, including a single bottle of fine Burgundy (Domain de la Romanee-Conti La Tache) that drew a lot of feverish attention and a winning bid of about $2,000. I didn't bid on the La Tache, although I did compete for about 10 lots of interesting bottles. I won two lots that cost me $370—$290 for the winning bids and another $80 for the 17 percent buyer's premium and 8.5 percent sales tax.


The first winner was a magnum bottle of 1986 Diamond Creek Cabernet Sauvignon. I'd visited the winery near Calistoga, Calif., and enjoyed several vintages of this long-lived beauty. I was curious to try a mature wine, so I successfully bid to acquire the oversized bottle, which holds two fifths of a gallon, for $200. That's about the same cost of a single bottle of the latest vintage, so I felt good about the bargain price for a well-aged specimen.

I also acquired a lot of six bottles of Zinfandel— five very interesting wines from different California producers, plus one bottle of white zinfandel that was probably worth $5. The lot cost me $90—less than 50 percent of retail. Another respectable savings and an adventure that hopefully will have a tasty payoff when I sample the wines with friends over the coming year.

Experience At-a-Glance
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Before you go, check out...

• Local Wine Events Auction FAQs.
• Wine Lovers Guide to Auctions.
• Jancis Robinson: American Charity Wine Auctions.

Atlanta, Ga.

• High Museum Atlanta Wine Auction, March 27-29, 2008
• High Museum.
• Woodruff Arts Center—Offers a variety of performing and visual arts, both traditional and avant-garde.
• Inman Park Bed and Breakfast—The Coca-Cola magnate's former residence.
• World of Coca-Cola Pavilion—A 45,000-square-foot exhibit hall/theme park/shrine to "the most successful product in the history of commerce."
• Atlanta Wine School—Offers both one-time classes and extended courses for consumers and trade personnel of all levels.
  

London

• Sotheby's—Finest and Rarest Wines auction, Feb. 20, 2008.
  

Beverly Hills, Calif.

• Christie's—Finest and Rarest Wines auctions, May 1 and May 3, 2008.
  

Napa Valley, Calif.

• Napa Valley Wine Auction—Auction Napa Valley 2008, June 5-8.
• Diamond Creek Vineyards.

Oakland, Calif.

• Clars Auction Gallery.