Case Study - Mr Accumulator aka “I’m never going to drink all this''
by Juliette Martin
2021-05-06
Luke MacWilliam, May 2021
Wine Owners attracts new clients for a whole number of reasons, we cater to a wide range of wine collecting related needs. One of the more frequent approaches we receive is from “Mr Accumulator”, the man with too much wine.
Mr Accumulator started out collecting in his 30’s, a passion for the delicious combined with a well paid career and a good relationship with his local or national merchant who delighted in sending their EP brochures and inviting him to tasting, and he took great delight in returning his order forms (remember those?).
30 years down the line and his collection is primo. 2,982 bottles at the last count, an awful lot of stuff he used to enjoy but as he has matured so have his tastes have changed too. No longer is he knocking back bottles of Claret 3 or 4 times a week, now he enjoys the finest Barolo and Burgundy at the weekend or when out for dinner, perhaps Champagne if the mood dictates.
He calls me up “Luke, My wife and I don’t drink as much as we used to, and when we do it’s usually X Y or Z, we don’t tend to go for the blockbuster wines I used to love so much - I just can’t see us drinking a large portion of the collection. We’d much rather sell 60% of it, use the profits to buy more of the wines we do want to drink (have you got any 2007 Sandrone by the way, Le Vigne, I only got 1 case at allocation), and put the rest towards the grandchildren, 4th one is on its way...”
A conversation ensues and he decides to take out a Wine Owners Collector subscription. He sends us his Octavian and LCB holdings, which we load up into his Wine Owners account. We have a bit of back and forth discussing his collection and we agree on around 100 cases he’d rather see the back of. Using a direct feed of live market prices from Wine Searcher he sets his offers a fraction below (to make sure this is the best offer out there), and away he goes. Having fun with his collection that had begun to become a nagging drain in the back of his mind, and his bank balance when it’s storage fees time.
Fast forward 12 months of selling at 4% + vat and he has pocketed £35k. That half case case of Mouton 1982 was a bit of a naughty purchase, granted, but it’s bucket list wine and he has no regrets.
Ring ring “Hello Wine Owners” “Hi there, I’ve just got into collecting wine and I’ve been really enjoying Syrahs from Northern Rhone - I’ve bought a few recent vintages EP, but I really want to get more stuff that I can enjoy now and someone mentioned your site is good for finding back vintages”. “Funny you should say that sir...I happen to know that a client is about to offer a load of Rhones at good prices, keep your eyes peeled, we can send you alerts if you fill in your wine preferences too”
See how this works?
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