How to Sell Wine at Auction: Process, Fees, Timeline
Updated
The estimate you were quoted, the hammer price and the money that reaches your account are three different numbers, and every house publishes the gaps between them. Most sellers read those gaps after the sale.
How to sell wine at auction runs to five steps, and three of them happen before anybody bids: get a free estimate, agree a reserve and a commission in writing, deliver the wine for inspection, wait for the sale, then wait again for settlement. Sotheby's publishes a standard seller's commission of "10% of the hammer price", adds a success fee "equivalent to 2% of the hammer price for any lot with a hammer price that exceeds its high estimate", and says it "will send payment within 45 days from the sale date, provided we are in receipt of the buyer's payment". WineBid says it issues settlements "30 business days (4-6 weeks) after auction close". iDealwine says it pays "by cheque within 35 days of the end of the auction sale". According to Bonhams, your net is the hammer less commission less agreed expenses. That is neither the estimate you were quoted nor the total the winning bidder paid.
What are the steps to sell wine at auction?
Five, and the first three cost nothing while deciding almost everything.
1. Ask for an estimate. Free at every house on this page. Sotheby's asks you to "Submit photos and information about your wine to begin your complimentary estimate request". Bonhams says "Submit your item online for a free and confidential valuation. If it's suitable for sale, a specialist will provide an auction estimate and advise on the next steps for selling." iDealwine takes an inventory by form or, for lists over thirty wines, by spreadsheet. Send producer, vintage, bottle size, case count, fill levels, original packaging and storage history in the first message. Everything a specialist has to ask for afterwards adds days.
2. Sign the consignment agreement. This is the document that fixes what you keep. Bonhams describes "a written agreement" that "will also confirm relevant terms, including the reserve". Read the expense schedule, not only the headline rate.
3. Get the wine into the house's warehouse. Sotheby's says its wine specialists arrange "inspection, packing and shipping to our temperature-controlled warehouses". Bonhams will "help pack and collect wines from their current location" and holds stock in "insured, temperate and humidity controlled warehouses". WineBid barcodes bottles "individually", then photographs and inspects them "individually using high resolution zoomable images, along with detailed inspection notes". Whatever the inspector finds is what the catalogue will say, and what the catalogue says is what the room bids against.
4. The sale. Your wine is grouped into lots. WineBid defines a lot as "the organizing unit of all auctions", which "may include a single bottle, a bottle and case, or any combination of bottles and bottle sizes". How your twelve bottles are split across lots changes the result, so ask.
5. Settlement. Weeks after the hammer, not days. Sotheby's, WineBid, iDealwine and Bonhams each publish their own figure, and the section below has them.
What does the auction house charge the seller?
Sotheby's publishes a percentage. The other three set the rate per consignment, which means the number is a negotiation and the expense list underneath it matters as much. Sotheby's and WineBid publish their seller terms in dollars.
| House | What the seller pays | Published detail |
|---|---|---|
| Sotheby's | 10% of hammer, plus a 2% success fee on any lot beating its high estimate | "Minimum $500 seller's commission applicable to any lot with a low estimate of $5,000 or less, whether sold or unsold" |
| Bonhams | An agreed rate set per consignment | Net proceeds are "the hammer price less our agreed seller's commission and any agreed upon expenses, such as illustration or loss and damage warranty fee" |
| WineBid | No rate published | Consignments carry a "$2,500 minimum total value preferred"; inbound shipping is free "for sales of wine collections valued at $10,000 or more", US collections only and not Alaska or Hawaii |
| iDealwine | A commission "charged to the seller when the hammer falls" | The commission is "iDealwine's fee for appraising, storing, insuring, advertising, and selling your wine" |
Two lines there matter more than the percentages.
Sotheby's keys its $500 floor to the low estimate rather than the result, and the floor applies "whether sold or unsold". An unsold lot is not a free option. On a lot estimated at $5,000 that hammers at $5,000, the floor and the 10% rate meet exactly. On one that hammers at $2,000, that floor is a quarter of what the room paid, and on a lot that fails to sell at all it is a bill with nothing on the other side of it.
Bonhams writes the counterweight into the agreement: "We will not deduct any expenses that have not been agreed with you before sale." Illustration and loss and damage warranty are the two it names. Get the whole expense list into the agreement, because the rate is not the cost. The line-by-line net proceeds guide works the full deduction stack in order.
What is the reserve price, and who controls it?
According to Sotheby's and Bonhams, the reserve is the floor below which your lot will not sell, it is confidential, and you agree it with the house rather than accept a number the house imposes.
Sotheby's defines it as "the confidential minimum price agreed upon between the consignor and Sotheby's" and adds that it is "never formally disclosed". Bonhams is blunter about what the number means to you: the reserve is "the minimum amount you will accept for your property prior to our charges". Prior to charges. A £2,000 reserve does not put £2,000 in your account.
iDealwine handles the default differently, and you want that settled before you sign. There, the reserve is "the starting auction price for a lot", "the price below which a lot cannot be sold", and it "is automatically set as the low estimate provided". You can go under that estimate or set no reserve at all, in which case "the auction starting price will be fixed at €1 to encourage competition between bidders". WineBid goes further and prices for you unless you object: its default option runs "an internal algorithm that sets reserves based on a weighted average of final auction hammer results for each item in our database", and if you choose custom reserves above market it will carry them "for 8 weeks/8 auctions" before asking you to come down.
The law behind all of this is short. In the UK, section 57 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 says "a sale by auction may be notified to be subject to a reserve or upset price", that "each lot is prima facie deemed to be the subject of a separate contract of sale", and that a sale is complete "when the auctioneer announces its completion by the fall of the hammer". In the United States, the Uniform Commercial Code at section 2-328 sets the same fall-of-the-hammer rule and draws the line sellers care about: "the auctioneer may withdraw the goods at any time until he announces completion of the sale", while in an auction without reserve, once the auctioneer has called for bids, "that article or lot cannot be withdrawn unless no bid is made within a reasonable time".
One thing you may not do is bid your own lot up quietly. Section 57 makes it "not lawful for the seller to bid himself or to employ any person to bid at the sale" unless the right to bid was notified, and a sale in breach "may be treated as fraudulent by the buyer".
Estimate, hammer, net: why are they three numbers?
Because each one is measured from a different side of the transaction, and only one of them is yours.
Sotheby's describes the estimate as a low and high pair "representing the opinion of Sotheby's experts about the range in which the lot might sell at auction", and the hammer price as "the price upon which the auctioneer's hammer falls, determining the sale price, but does not include the buyer's premium". Above the hammer sits the premium the winner pays: WineBid states that "buyers are charged a 17% premium in addition to the final price of the wine". Below the hammer sits your commission. The bidder's total and your cheque sit on opposite sides of the same number.
Then there is the trap. iDealwine's published price estimate "consists of the hammer price and the buyer's premium", while "the estimation sent to sellers excludes the buyers premium which is why there is a difference in price". Two numbers with the same name, and only one of them is the seller's. Before you compare a quote from one house against a result you saw at another, check which side of the premium each was measured from. The buyer's premium guide sets out where each house's rate sits.
If bidding stops short, Sotheby's calls the outcome bought in: "If there are no bids on a lot, or if bidding does not reach the reserve price, the lot is “bought in,” meaning it is left unsold and remains the property of the owner. Buyer’s." You keep the wine, and at Sotheby's you may still owe the minimum commission.
When do you actually get paid?
Between four and seven weeks after the hammer at the houses that publish a number. Sotheby's, WineBid, iDealwine and Bonhams each make payment conditional on the buyer settling first.
| House | Published settlement |
|---|---|
| Sotheby's | "Within 45 days from the sale date, provided we are in receipt of the buyer's payment" |
| WineBid | "Settlements are issued 30 business days (4-6 weeks) after auction close" |
| iDealwine | "You will be paid by cheque within 35 days of the end of the auction sale", or by bank transfer on request |
| Bonhams | "The date for payment of the net sale proceeds varies between selling locations", and payment is made "provided we are in receipt of cleared funds from the buyer" |
Now add the front half. Sotheby's says its specialists review a submission at no cost and "provide preliminary estimates for items that can be included in one of our sales channels in 15 to 20 days", and the wine still has to be collected, inspected, catalogued and slotted into a sale that suits it. Plan on roughly a quarter from first email to cleared funds, and longer if you want a specific sale rather than the next one.
That timeline is the reason to check the wine's own position before you commit. A case moving into its drinking plateau sells to people who intend to open it as well as to people who intend to hold it, so run it against what is drinking now and against the fine wine market index before you fix a sale date rather than after.
Which bottles will a house actually take?
Ones with enough value to be worth cataloguing and enough paperwork to be worth bidding on.
WineBid states a "$2,500 minimum total value preferred" on estimate requests. Sotheby's sets its economics with the $500 minimum commission on lots with a low estimate of $5,000 or less. Neither is a hard door, but both tell you the same thing: below a few thousand in total value the fixed costs eat the exercise, and a merchant or an exchange will treat you better. The routes comparison for selling fine wine covers what the alternatives pay.
Above that line, three things decide whether a house takes the consignment and how it prices it.
Condition. Fill level is the part you can read before anyone else sees the case, and it is the part that moves the estimate. WineBid lists its own scale, calling three centimetres in a Burgundy bottle "a perfectly normal fill for wines 12 years and older" and top shoulder in a Bordeaux bottle "an acceptable and normal fill level for wines 15 years of age and older". Our ullage guide sets out what each house publishes band by band.
Provenance. Original wooden cases, an unbroken storage record and a clean purchase trail all do one job: they remove the buyer's reason to discount. The condition and provenance guide is the full inspection checklist.
Marketability. A first growth, a Pétrus or a run of Cristal sells because a specific buyer is already looking for it. A mixed case of good but untraded bottles does not, whatever it cost you. The Bordeaux producer atlas is the fastest way to see which estates in your cellar carry a secondary market at all.
Should you sell in bond or duty paid?
In bond, if the wine is already there, because leaving bond is a one-way door.
HMRC's Excise Notice 197 sets the mechanic out. Excise Notice 197 states that excise goods "are deemed to be warehoused when they enter the area approved by HMRC", and that a warehousekeeper may "remove duty-suspended excise goods from an excise warehouse to home use on payment of duty". On HMRC's reading, duty stays suspended while the case sits there, not forgiven, and it falls due at the moment the wine comes out.
For a seller that cuts two ways. A duty-paid case carries a cost the in-bond version does not and a narrower pool of buyers who want it. And a case that has left bond has a gap in the storage record, which is the exact thing every inspection above is looking for. Tax on the gain is a separate question with its own answer: see capital gains tax on wine, and check the rules on who may legally sell if you are moving a whole cellar rather than a case.
Set the reserve against what your wine has actually fetched
The seller who does best walks into the valuation already knowing the number. Every wine on this site carries its auction price history: what your vintage has hammered at, how often it beat its estimate, how often it went unsold, and which way the last two years have moved.
Compare that history against the estimate a specialist quotes you, and the reserve conversation stops being a matter of trust. You will know whether the range is generous, whether the season is right, and what you are turning down if you take a firm bid instead.