Wine Wisdom: How to Rightsize Your Collection When Moving to a Smaller Home

Join us for episode #20 called "Wine Wisdom: How to Rightsize Your Collection When Moving to a Smaller Home" as we uncork practical wisdom with Jim Gratton, a seasoned wine industry veteran with three decades of expertise. Discover the art of downsizing your cherished wine collection while transitioning to a cozier abode. Tune in to explore strategic sipping tips, cellar organization hacks, and sentimental selection strategies that ensure your treasured vintages find the perfect new home. Whether you're a casual enthusiast or a connoisseur, Jim's insights will help you savor every moment of this downsizing journey.

Transcript

"Wine Wisdom: How to Rightsize Your Collection When Moving to a Smaller Home"

@Start.  Hi, I'm Dennis Day with my co-host Judy Gratton. Say hi, you doing? We are here with our, we've got a full team here.

@1:50 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

This is amazing. All three of us.

@1:52 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

Welcome, Jim Gratton.

@1:55 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

@1:58 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

And this is episode. Good 20 of getting your edge how to right size your home and life podcast. And we are here to help you.

And we have changed brokerages. We are now with an international brokerage called exp same service. In fact, I think this is going to be an improvement to our business because we are learning so much.

@2:26 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Correct.

@2:29 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

So what are we here today? We are here to talk about downsizing your wine collection.

@2:37 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yes.

@2:38 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

La, la. And I'm really excited about this. This topic because I do absolutely nothing about wine other than it's made for grapes.

Sorry. And so I'm really excited to hear what you have to say, Jim, about someone, you know, just taking care of your.

@3:15 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, Dennis, I was involved in the wine industry from 1981 until 2018. So 37 years, if I'm doing my math correctly, I was a wine steward for a couple of years, then I worked for a wine distributor, one particular wine distributor for 17 years.

And later, another distributor and then various wine importers as a Northwest Regional Manager. So I was responsible for seven to nine states in our area.

And getting wine to them from all parts of the world. And I've also worked for a couple of Washington wineries too.

Sounds like I've flitted around, but that was 37 years of being in the wine business. During which there have been a lot of changes, especially here in the state of Washington, back in the 1990s, it was actually illegal to sell your wine collection.

And in the 1990s, there was a gentleman named Rand Seeley who owned a wine shop then called Esquin, which is still around and quite a nice place.

And he petitioned the Washington State Licton troll board to be able to sell collections from his clients, which was kind of funny because you would see wines that you had sold.

Sold or I had sold to Esquin and then purchased by customers come back even after they were long gone and they were into several vinages later.

But so it's now legal to do just that to go to a wine shop. There are several in Seattle, including Esquin city sellers and Wallingford and a number of others that will evaluate your collection and they accept part of it, they accept all of it on basically on a consignment.

They sell it to obviously take their cut and then pay you after it's completed. But if you're a serious collector and you have say many, many cases of wine, let's say a collection that's

It's into the hundreds of bottles. And you suddenly realize, as you're getting older, that if you drank each bottle a day, you would never get through all of it.

At that point, you know, you've got to either think that, well, children are going to want this, or you can say, maybe it's time I sold this.

Thomas Jefferson famously said, leave the house and the money to your children, drink the wine yourself. And the idea behind that famous statement was that your children are unlikely to appreciate the wine as much as you do.

So there are lots of other ways to downsize your collection, and many, many reasons for doing so. A lot of that, you know, there's, mean, money might be, you know, incentive.

But there are also incentives, you know, if you want to, if there's wine that you collected that you didn't particularly care for and you want to sell that portion, or you want to make room for more wine collecting and you just are out of room for storage.

There are many reasons to go, you know, to, to To be able to, to, to downsize your collection. If you're, if you're a serious, serious collector with hundreds of bottles and famous names, that sort of thing.

might want to contact one of the auction houses. Christie's or Sotheby's come to mind. They all have different rules and different methods.

So you need to contact them. directly and they. And they do this all the time. mean, this is nothing.

You're not approaching them. It's something they're not set up to do. There are also online firms that do this as well.

And they are easily accessible by looking online and just typing in, you know, how to sell your wine collection.

But just for some names, there's JJ Buckley Fine Wines, which is in Oakland. And Brentwood Wine Company, which is also affiliated with Seller Tracker, which is a popular wine site.

And they have methods for evaluating your wine. can reach out to them, tell them what you have. They will.

Evaluate what your wine is, what viniges, and then get back to you with a valuation and then arrange for transport of the wines from your seller.

Prior to doing that, I would advise you to first look at some wine valuation sites so that you know what the value is of your wines.

It's often, you think, you sometimes think that your wine is more valuable than what the market really thinks, with houses.

The seller always thinks that there's thing is unique. But on the flip side of that is that we often remember what we paid for something, think that it has increased in value, and

And it has increased in value more than you ever thought. I went on to a site called wineowners.com forward slash valuations.

And you can type in any wine that you have, as long as you know the name of the wine and the vintage.

And it will tell you what the market is for that wine. If there's no market, that's they'll tell you that too.

They will come up in pounds because it's a British thing, but they they, there's a little button in the corner.

You can change it to dollars and and get a quick valuation. Now the valuation is also they have it on their handy little thing too.

They'll give you an evaluation and then they'll give you the selling history of it recently. almost always the selling history is less than what it's worth.

So when you look at a wine, so for instance, I typed in a couple of wines that I own, Chateau Palmer, which is a wine from the Margot region of Bordeaux in 1985, our daughter's birth year.

And the valuation for that is $3,805. And then another wine I typed in Penfolds Grange, I used to work for Penfolds in 1999.

And the value of that is $4,902. Now it's never sold for that. And $3,200. So the Alluations are based on what they think the wine continues to accrue in value, but that doesn't mean that it's what it's going to sell for.

Same as a house, you know, we come up with evaluation of a house and oftentimes it sells for somewhat less than what we put it on and listed it for.

So it's a there's a lot of resources out there online. And you know, the one thing that that is always a problem is transporting wine during the summer.

Wine does not like heat. What happens when a bottle gets warm, besides it's not good for the wine inside is the cork.

Well, we'll leak and there's nothing that destroys the value of a bottle of wine. After it's been a leaker, an auction house or anyone else is going to easily determine they're going to look at the capsule.

They're going to look at the condition and they can tell if it's ever been a leaker because it once it's leaked, it gets in the on the capsule and it's also visible on the court too.

So that would that would any any mine that's a leaker, even if it was a tenfold range for forty four forty five hundred is worth nothing if it's been a leaker.

So in getting rid of your collection, it might be better to wait and do it in the cooler months of the year.

Or if you're desperate to do it during this time of year, you should probably look at your local sources first.

@14:00 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

If you wanted to wait until the cooler months of the year, aren't there places like Esquin I think also has storage where you can store your collection, correct?

@14:14 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yes, Esquin has, well, there are two very large wine storage facilities in Seattle. Esquin is one of the two.

There's another one in South Lake Union. can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but it's like Seattle wine storage, something like that.

It's certainly if you Google Seattle wine storage, both of those will come up. They have temperature control places for you to store your wine and secure locations.

The thing that we'll get back to selling your collection. A important thing for the value of the wine is to assess what we call provenance.

And that is, where did you buy it? At what price? If you have your receipts, that's a good thing.

Where was it stored all this time? Most houses do not have perfect storage conditions. A lot of new construction has, especially in the luxury and has gorgeous wine sellers with temperature and humidity controls.

And that would be something to be able to brag on in terms of my wine that I'm trying to sell here has been stored in pristine condition.

And that adds to its value too. And not pristine conditions. I kept it in a co-closet for, know, I looked at it every once in a while, and, you know, was it stored on its side?

these things are considerations in terms of valuation. and many, these places like the auction houses in Brentwood, Wine Company, they have experts who can evaluate wine.

They know, for instance, one of the things that happens with wine over time is it can evaporate. And what that does is increase the distance between the cork and where the wine starts.

That's called Ulaj. And if the Ulaj is down more than what the auction house thinks is right for that vintage and that era of wine, they probably won't accept it or will it

@17:04 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, I was just thinking when you were talking about these storage units, I mean, if you were going to stay in a specific area or the area that you were in, had those storage units, you could conceivably not downsize your collection and just store them in those storage units instead, although that would cost you money.

But so if you are going to downsize your collection and let's say you love everything that's in there, is there a way that you can prioritize which wines to keep and which ones to let go of in that downsizing process?

@17:39 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, my father, one of the last times I was at his condominium, I had, I was working for a company called DeLil, a famous Washington winery that produces very high-end

One's lovely wines. And I dropped off a couple of bottles after participating in it in a trade tasting in Sun Valley.

And I said, you know, these wines are wonderful now. You know, if you want to open them, you know, please go ahead.

Or they'll be even better in five years. And he said, don't give me any wine that needs to For five years.

I don't even buy green bananas. So he was in his nineties then. So, but in any case, so that gets me back to the answer of your question, which is those wines, know, wine review journals will often give you a range of age of a wine.

And certainly look. John L Real Estate, Jr. you keep a wine for too long period of time, you find that it's not what you expected.

Many people think they want to age wines and they think that when the wines age that they mature in an upward fashion where they're always getting better.

That's not the case at all. It's more like going in and out. Out in and out and little improvements.

Sometimes a wine is like ready to drink for about six months and then goes into a dead phase where it, you know, when you open it, it's like, what happened here?

But another six months or a year later, it's, it's drinking wonderfully. So it's, it's always a kind of a crapshoot of what to keep and what to, what to drink and what could last.

@20:30 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

So are there any factors, anything you can give people that would help them to determine which wines have the potential to age well and which, you know, which wines are worth keeping for a longer period of time?

Is it like, could you say that Chardonnays are worth keeping or Marlow's last age better? Is something like that?

@20:54 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, yeah, generally white wines are worth And people don't drink white wines. I mean, the aging white wines is kind of a perilous thing.

Certainly, you know, the wines change. All wines as they age tend to lose fruit. And I often say when people talk to me about wanting to age wines, I'll ask them.

And like aged wines. Young fruity wines are what we normally drink. If you're buying, know, as most people, you know, they most people age wine on the drive home from the grocery store or the wine shop.

And, and, and that's it. And, you know, so when they taste an older wine and the fruit is become more one part of a whole instead of the dominant part of it.

Well, it doesn't receive over time. So anything that's out of balance, don't want to age. But getting back to your question, white wines generally used to be thought of as, you know, keep them around for three years.

That's baloney, especially wines like German raislings will age for decades can get better and better and better. I had a wine.

When I was at the German Wine Academy in 1986, the first wine they poured us at our going away was a German reaseling from 1969 that tasted more like a rich chardonnay based wine from the Burgundy region of France.

And just stunning. So there was a wine that was 17 years old at that time. the white wines can age.

There's many factors about whether you should do that or not. But generally, I think most people don't want to age white wines because they don't really care for them when they're older.

And it's funny, I mean, the solubility of older white wines is not high either. They're more of a craft shoot than red wines.

The red wines, generally Cabernet based wines, Merlot based wines, tend to age better. Petite Sarah do age as well.

Pino noir. I generally think it's a six to seven year aging is about right for it to be at its optimum drinking.

But that's there's many, many great great burgundy wines made from Pino noir on that age for decades and are wonderful.

So it's always a craft shoot but when you when you age white wines you're you're probably you're probably taking more of a chance than aging most red wines.

Now In terms of aging, there's no reason on earth to age most red wines made today. winemakers are making wines that the public will buy and enjoy right now.

They buy them at a restaurant that they loved them with their food. They're not particularly interested in aging. A lot of them do age well, most wines are made to be consumed young.

Especially wines of under a certain price point are definitely not ever thought of as long-agers.

@25:49 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

Jim, are there regions? France, California, that age better or have more value? And over time?

@26:02 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yes, so that is certainly the case with supply and demand. there are many... Well, it's a collective collection type of wines out of California that are beyond boutique.

They are in the stratosphere of prices and are certainly trophy wines. And those wines are highly sought after. But four wines that are commonly available, you know, some of these wines like Screaming Eagle and out of Napa Valley, I think they produce a round.

I have to check, but it's probably no more than about 2,500 cases. Well, the... The wines that are not like that, that are in higher demand, are French wines out of Bordeaux and Burgundy that are from what we call classified gross.

In 1855, the Bordelet decided to implement or enshrine in categories one through five, first growth, second growth, growth, fourth growth and fifth growth.

wines that were only now five, first growth. And those are Chateau Margot, Chateau Obrion, Chateau Le Fitt, Chateau Mouton Rockchild.

And I forget one of them. Anyway, so those wines cost around $1,000 of vintage per bottle these days. And if you have those in older villages, prices are generally beyond that.

So, Bordeaux classified gross, and there's a, Bordeaux is a large, large wine-making region. These classified gross, all of them produce around 35,000 to 4,000 cases of vintage.

So, they're not totally, you know, if you make 2,000 cases and you get some gigantic review, you know, there's no way to get a hold of a bottle.

with Bordeaux, only takes money. there are lots of factors. That affect that like how much the Chinese are buying these days and how much demand there is worldwide for these particular bordos.

In Burgundy, which the simple thing about Burgundy is that the white lines are made from Chardonnay and the red lines are made from Pinot Noir.

After that, it gets really difficult. But there are classifications, not of wineries, but of Bordeaux. There are classifications of vineyards.

So the vineyards are, there are wines that are basically village wines. Something like a Jeopardy! Chamberton is from that village.

Well, then as you go up the hillsides, the next level up generally is not all way up. But anyway, the premiere crew, which sounds like it ought to be.

Wow, that's the first. And then there's Grand Crew. Grand Crew is the most highly sought after birdie knee. So the wines of Domain Romani Conti, for instance, are thousands of dollars a bottle.

And used to be that way when I was first in wine business. In fact, from the 1982 vintage of Bordeaux, I could buy a Mouton and Margot for $39.95 wholesale, which translates to about $55 a bottle.

Now they are in the thousands. So those regions are highly regarded. Italy has another, has regions. Most particularly Piedmont, where Barolo and Barboresco are made.

Those wines generally Get a lot, get quite a bit of attention and value. Keating classical reservists and some of the, the wines that are made with blends featuring Cabernet and other things with Sanjeev ACR.

Those are highly regarded as well too. In Germany there are a number of highly regarded areas as well too.

California and primarily Napa Valley, there are other regions too that get a lot of attention as far as value and it's next impossible to find a Napa Valley Cabernet that isn't at least close to

$100 these days.

@32:02 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

So Jim, are people investing and speculating on these like they would say gold or baseball cards or. Yeah, yeah, going stuff like that.

@32:15 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yes, indeed. There are. There are a number of places that facilitate buying. Buying, well, not necessarily just collections, but buying out of the.

Bordeaux. Buying market, Bordeaux kind of unusual in that they, they generally don't exclusively go with any. One importer that the classified growths are available to any importer wants to buy them.

And so there are are like real estate investment. Trust, there are organizations that do nothing but buy and sell collections of wine.

Perhaps they commit to buying 10 cases of Chateau Margot and out of of the wine. They store it in most often, they store Bordeaux and that sort of thing in Europe so that the wine doesn't travel that much.

Travel is not a thing that's all that beneficial to wine. so there are firms that are buying wine left and right and they've driven up the price of a lot of things for wine lovers like me who just want to

I buy a bottle, have a great bottle of wine and drink it at some point. They are, you know, their ability with their resources to buy these wines and without the intention of ever drinking them or even touching them is certainly it's been, I mean, it's the valuations of wine, as I mentioned, know, like when I in 1984 or 85 when the 82 were those were first released, you know, you could buy this first gross for very little money, both you would help on to the 1982 vintage, which was the highest great advantage.

Well, it made Robert Parker the famous wine critic. He evaluated the 1982s in his little The first 100-point vintage, and he breaks wine on a 100-point scale, the first 100-point vintage, and the prices just started escalating.

And now, you know, if you bought a case of 1982 Margot or Luftan Robchild, you would be able to sell that for probably more than most houses cost now.

@35:31 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

And it's in the Seattle area?

@35:35 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

No. No. Yes. No, but in the case, outpace the stock market, the real estate market in the percentage of growth.

And so that has attracted a lot of people who, you know, just want to make money. It has nothing to do with money.

What do they love wine or not?

@36:02 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, so you know, one thing I just wanted to clarify when you mentioned the Chinese, when their economy started to grow, they became wine connoisseurs as well.

And so their population is so much larger than many other countries. They really did begin to buy up quite a bit of the wine.

And that definitely changed the prices all over the world, whereas they hadn't up until that point when their economy wasn't quite as strong as it was.

I'm not exactly sure where it is today. it is, wine is definitely something that people can invest in, not just for enjoyment but for financial gain.

I had a question for you on the French wines, and particularly, I know that climate change has had a definite effect on grape growing.

And so is that affecting the scarcity of some of these wines because they're no longer able to produce to the degree that they were before because of climate change issues, know, change in rain and heat and whatnot.

Is that?

@37:17 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, it's. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's more a long term effect. But many, many places are preparing for it.

In fact, I just read today that the French region of all sauce, which is famous for reasoning and diverged for me during white wines.

Primarily they they produce peanut oil. Some years, but mostly white wines. And the French. French have a very strict rules, which are enforced by the government on what can be grown where.

A person who owns a vineyard in Burgundy cannot decide to rip out his peon and walnut and plant cavernate.

It's not legal. In all sauce, they've just this week allowed for experimentation with the grape sauerk which is a grape that really likes hot weather.

Alsace does not have hot weather. It is right on the border with Germany and it's a very cool growing area.

But that's an indication of climate change. And there's a lot of discussion that the hot summers, what happens when the temperature gives over 100 degrees, grapes shut down.

They don't progress in their ripening. They basically decide that this is going to kill us if it stays like this.

It's the only reason, the only way that Eastern Washington can produce really wonderful wines is that we have those hot days, but we have really cool nights where it cools down into the 50s and the grapes cool off and then they warm up But in other areas, Bordeaux for instance has had vintage after vintage where the warming climate has made it possible to have really terrific vintage year after year, which is not, they're still worried about what is going to happen down the road.

Bordeaux is as well many places that were ideal. For growing cooler grapes are now starting to see that it's not going to last.

So there's a lot of planning going on and a lot of experimentation. You know, we have leading universities like University California, Davis and Washington State University here.

That are experimenting with different grape varieties with the intention of. Developing varieties that we may not even be familiar with right now.

You know, Italy has 3000 different. Uh, Vintifera grapes, which is grapes that produce wine, not table grapes. And we're there looking at at what grapes are going to survive well as we as the planet heats up and you know, one or two degrees difference.

Uh, yeah, it's going to be that's going to be. Really widely effective world of wine. There will be lots of places where we don't think of them as great wine producers that are going to be more ideal for growing.

And like British Columbia and the Lake Okanagan region, they're getting warm days now that they're not producing, know, we're producing reaslings and, you know, and other wines like that, where they're starting to look at, you know, we can do cavernous with the best of Washington because it's getting warmer here.

@41:45 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

So will climate change affect the price of fine wine that's already been produced? It may increase the value because of this trade.

@42:00 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, supply and demand. I think that, you know, I was seeing a guy who has more money than God apparently had a tasting that one of my friends was invited to Facebook friends and he was decrying, you know, the host mid 80s, Bordeaux as having been ruined by Robert Parker and his love of Parker really loved big rich kitchen the face wines and he more he because he was so highly regarded as a reviewer.

When he would give wines, you know, upper 90s that were big, bad, rich and unlike what Bordeaux known for, which is finesse and elegance, more.

And more producers started to change to that. And so the wines for those people who like their bordeaux to be more about elegance and less about power, those wines are more highly valued.

So, but there's a diminishing supply of things like that.

@43:22 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

well, so getting back to downsizing because that's what we're about. If someone were moving into another home where let's say they don't have access to a wine cellar in their home and they don't have access to storage units within a wine company, what are some suggestions of ways that they could store their wine in their new home and keep it?

I mean, where's the best place in the home? The best place.

@43:55 - Jim Gratton  (EXP Realty)

Well, if you have a basement, that's, you know, that's probably the best place. To be the that what wine likes is a cool environment.

You know, we are fortunate in the northwest Western Washington and Western Oregon to have a reasonably cool climate. Of course, we do get a few hot days and those are not really.

Kind to to wine. So what you wanted to have it, you know, if there's if there's air conditioning, well, you know, keep them in a in a dark area where it's it stays cool.

Obviously, if you don't have air conditioning, basement is probably the most likely place to store your wine. If you if you don't have a basement, you want to look for the the

The place that is coolest in the house.

@45:05 - Judy Gratton 

Light, you said dark.

@45:06 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

You want dark light is, you know, a temporary when you go into a cellar or whatever is no big deal, but, but they should be resting in the dark.

The, the, they should have a consistent humidity. This is not something I've ever been able to achieve, but we, you know, it is, it's best to keep the wine as in relatively cool temperatures.

Definitely if the house is heating up, you know, like the heat dome we had a couple years ago that, you know, we had temperatures of 110.

And most of us didn't have air conditioning. Those were, those are kind of. They think that really could hurt wine.

Now, another thing that is a terrific, really good investment is to buy a wine refrigerator, which can keep your wine, especially the value, the bottles you value the most.

They have small ones that have that whole, you know, two cases. One side and two cases on another side.

And then there's big, big, large ones too. And there you have, you know, you have a door that's shaded, that's so that light doesn't really get in there.

And a constant temperature and a constant humidity. It's where I keep my most valuable bottles. And unfortunately, you know, I can tell I drink one, then I don't have room to put.

any. Yeah. There's in there, but that was a, you know, if you could say when you go to downsize, well, these 24 bottles of penfuls range were stored in a locked wine cooler for the last 10 years, 15 years.

That's going to help in terms of their value.

@47:28 - Judy Gratton 

Cool.

@47:29 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

And if you get a family who say the wine collector passes on and this family is left with this collection, they don't know things about wine.

They don't have the interest or the waste that they could say donate this wine to, you know, good cause?

@47:48 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, yes, there are lots of, in fact, I was when I was working for wine importers. I got an end to live.

Phil was another one. Every auction for some little school somewhere called wanting, could you make a donation like, it wasn't a business.

In fact, with Dilil, the time I worked for them, they were about a 12,000 case winery. were expanding and were about 20,000 when I left.

They actually produced a one. They for these specific purposes to let a charity have this wine to sell. You can donate and if you think about, make this donation, make sure it's written, make sure you've got to recede for the fact that you donated a 1985 Chateau Lafitte Rothschild.

That would give you a tax deduction of considerable amount. So it's a really, you can donate them. That's the easiest thing to do to rid yourself of a wine, if you're not a wine drinker.

And you've got these wines to deal with. But, you know, any place you wanted it, if you wanted children's hospital, they would probably take it for an auction.

@49:41 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

you wanted PBS, they'd probably take it for an auction type thing.

@49:47 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yes, yeah. There are so many places that have auctions, children's possibility. T Minor reade people do that. I mean, I mean, when I got hit up for the school, such and such fund, and I never bothered with a tax deduction or anything like that.

But if you're going to donate something of considerable value, you probably want to go to a PBS fund. to or NPR or Children's Hospital.

Others that are set up to take donations like that. And I'm sure that there's 10,000 more. I didn't mention that would would be set up for that sort of thing.

@50:48 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Are you saying all those donations your wife asked you to donate when our kids were school?

@51:00 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

The vinters that I worked for, they had already been hit up enough that they produced certain things for donations that were were rarities with pen folds.

We had a Magnum, which is 1.5 liters of one of their bin wines. Calimna Chabras that came in a wood box with a plexiglass front.

So it was not something that anyone else could buy. And you know, that's what, when you go to the wine auction at Chateau San Michel for the Washington wine auction that's happening this month, the things that they have forbidding on our unusual things.

Peter bottles of wine, that sort of thing. And all the wineries are used to getting hit up for these things.

People forget that it's a business and you've got to make money and you're asking them to give away their product for name recognition, which none of them need.

So anyway.

@52:22 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, so if you are considering, you know, if you are going to downsize your collection, whether you're donating it or selling it, are there any pitfalls?

Are there any things that you should be careful not to do? Are there any? Does that make sense?

@52:40 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, you know, there are many of them.

@52:45 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

You said be careful of how they travel in the summer.

@52:49 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

So if you have a large collection or you know, let's even, you know, even four or five cases that you want to rid yourself of that are.

Douglas.K., Investment Estate. Dennis Day,.K., Planner Planner Planner.K., Planner.K., Planner.K., Planner Planner Financial Planner Investment Advisor,.K., I'm not going until the temperature drops.

And so, you know, you may very well find yourself in a situation where they're telling you, okay, we will accept this and we're going to arrange for transportation, but it won't be until October.

And, you know, okay.

@54:18 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, and another thing that comes to, I mean, I would probably recommend that this is not something that anybody would ever consider putting on Facebook marketplace or offer up or craigslist.

I'm sure there are people out there who could look at that as a really easy theft. I wouldn't just let people come to my home and look at my wine collection and buy whatever, because I don't think it would necessarily be safe.

your wine collection? Not my wife, your wife.

@55:02 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Anyway, it is illegal to sell wine yourself. In this state and in most states of the Union, you need to go through a wine shop, a licensed retailer.

And as I said, it used to be illegal to do that. now in the state, it's legal to do that.

But you can, if you put something up. I think most platforms don't allow you to put up any alcoholic beverages.

I may be wrong on that, but I would think because there's legalities involved, they would take that down pretty quickly.

And I don't know of a state in the Union that allows you to sell wine yourself unless you're licensed retailers.

@56:00 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

Jim, we have companies that come in and do estate sales. We actually had a estate sale person on our podcast very early in our.

And they come in, look at your furniture and your jewelry and your China and your 1960s toys apparently. And they evaluate it.

Then they do a, you know, a state sale. Is there something like that? That's in the wine industry.

@56:33 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Well, the estate sale people that I know of have contacts. would, they would not attempt to evaluate your collection in terms of its value.

I know of one instance where the state sale people came in and they. A someone from, I'm not sure if it was from Asagorn or, or where, but they came in some to evaluate the lines and they, they basically said that about a quarter of this particular client's lines was sellable.

You know, had any market value at all. There was, you know, magnums of stuff that were, you know, from wineries that don't produce wines to age and no value whatsoever.

So they ended up, I believe they ended up trashing a number of the lines that had no value because they couldn't sell them at their state sales.

But in any case, yeah, they, they would have somebody come in and, and evaluate the, the collection. And it, again, if it's, you know, it's just.

@58:20 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

I know, but what I'm thinking is, Jim, would you consider putting together maybe a list of some of these sites that you've recommended?

And stores at least in Washington State where they could store their wines if they wanted to. So we could post that on our website as one of our giveaways.

And so people who are interested in finding out more about storing or selling or donating their wines could go there and get that information.

Get that little freebie from us. Would you mind doing that?

@58:56 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

I would be happy to do that.

@59:00 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Super. Well, I think I don't think I have any other questions. I knew. I mean, I know that he knows an awful lot about wine because I've been around him all this time.

@59:12 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

So, well, I'm just thinking of my, my parents who stored the wine in the garage that wasn't insulated. you know, temperature would go up and be even hotter than your house.

And cold in the winter.

@59:30 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

You know, you know, wine bad, right? It's, it's been a car.

@59:38 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

Yeah.

@59:40 - Judy Gratton 32052

Then vine, wine, gar, bad.

@59:42 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yeah. That means bad wine.

@59:45 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yeah.

@59:47 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

So, yeah, you know, I've had wine that's been improperly stored in, in, in, in, and had it be, you know, just.

Just fine. Nothing in wine is hard and fast. is what is best for wine. Sometimes wine that isn't stored correctly tends to age faster.

The older I get, the more I would appreciate that. So it ages faster and then is far more drinkable than a wine that had been properly stored.

Now, again, it's a gamble and it's a generalization too.

@1:00:35 - Judy Gratton  (EXP Realty)

I think that's kind of the whole idea behind wine, isn't it? That there's always a risk?

@1:00:40 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yeah. It's one of the pleasures of wine and aging wine is when you open it and you cut it right at the right moment.

It's wonderful. It's an enchanting sort of Douglas CFP®, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor, Financial Planner Investment Financial Planner & Planner Financial Financial Financial Financial Planner Planner Investment

Paul D'Cork. I was going to pull D'Cork and pull him all down the drain, thinking they were all bad.

And the first one that was a leaker was bad. I poured it down the drain. pulled from the next one.

poured it down the drain and I opened the next one. it smelled really good. I tasted it. it was just marvelous.

I'm why did I open this? But yeah, so storage conditions. Conditions that are, and there are many times when wine should have been drunk.

It's better to drink a wine too early than too late. And when it's too late, it's often, you never know.

@1:02:51 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

Okay, good advice to go with. It's better to drink the wine too early than too late.

@1:02:58 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yeah.

@1:02:58 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

All right. Thanks so much, Jim. Appreciate that coming on and helping folks who have their wine collections and maybe need a downsize can't.

Can't figure out what to do with them. I hope this is going to be helpful to them.

@1:03:15 - Jim Gratton (EXP Realty)

Yeah. Hope so too.

@1:03:20 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

All right, that is it for our episode 20. We want to thank you for listening and or. Joining us on YouTube.

@1:03:56 - Dennis Day (EXP Realty)

We really appreciate those folks who. keep that have youon who have contact And found out about us through our podcast.

We're here to help and that's our job. Give us call, check out our websites, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.

@1:04:21 - Judy Gratton (EXP Realty)

Thank you so much. Bye bye.