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You are here: Home / Blog Post / Wine silent auction idea: Sommeliers drive bigger bids
Apr 14

Wine silent auction idea: Sommeliers drive bigger bids

Sherry Truhlar 2 Comments

I’ll be working a wine auction later this month in Texas and thought I’d share a wine silent auction idea I witnessed at another event.

Wine silent auction idea sommeliersIf you’ve got a lot of wine in your auction, why not have a sommelier onsite to educate guests and  “talk up” your packages?

At a school auction earlier this year, one entire silent auction section was devoted to wine.

Large formats. Hard-to-find wines. Rare vintages.

Some were sold as cases or collections; others were sold as single bottles. Though many of your guests might appreciate wine, that doesn’t mean they are familiar with every bottle they see.

Sherry Truhlar wine auctioneer MarylandMany might be partial to a specific area (“I like Oregon wines.”) or type of grape (“I enjoy a great shiraz.”). But beyond their specific area of personal expertise, they become lost as to what they’d enjoy trying.

As an auctioneer, I love educated bidders. Bidders who are confident they will enjoy the wine will bid more aggressively for it.

Getting your guests familiar with wines that are unfamiliar to them can pay off for you. They are more likely to pay a premium for those bottles.

A sommelier can help direct your guests to wines they will enjoy. By asking a few simple questions, your sommelier might suggest, “I think you’d really enjoy this lot over here.” Or say, “What’s special about this collection is that it’s from the same region of Italy you told me you liked.”

At the auction I worked, the sommeliers were two professionals. But I’ve known many people who are incredibly knowledgeable about wine who don’t make their living working in the industry.

If you’ve got access to a professional who is willing to help you at the auction — great! If not, don’t overlook a passionate hobbyist who knows his way around a wine store.

Having a knowledgeable sales rep like this in your silent auction wine section can make a difference in your final bid prices.

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About Sherry Truhlar

Fundraising auctioneer and educator, helping schools and nonprofits plan more profitable benefit auctions. A prolific writer for her own blog and other fundraising sites, she’s been covered in The Beacon-News, Town & Country Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Northern Virginia Magazine, Wiley's Special Events Galore!, AUCTIONEER, and other publications.

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Comments

  1. Sharon Evans says

    April 15, 2015 at 10:47 AM

    A word of caution about wines and auctions. Recently British Columbia Liquor Commission issued a directive that single bottles of wine cannot be offered. We can put a bottle of wine in a snack basket however so!!!.
    Be sure about the rules in your area.

    Reply
    • Sherry Truhlar says

      April 15, 2015 at 10:54 AM

      Absolutely! Great input, Sharon. Rules vary by location. In 2009 I wrote a bit about that and some other laws that people should keep in mind with benefit auctions. Here is Three License Laws Affecting Benefit Auctions. (Case in point, any USA auctioneer working in Canada is supposed to have an LMA.)

      Reply

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I was very fortunate to have Red Apple on board for my first auction. Working with Sherry was invaluable. She provided guidance at every phase of planning, from procurement on forward – and she challenged us to make our event more ambitious and more successful at every stage. Thank you, Sherry!

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Oak Hill School (Eugene, OR)

If your auction needs to upgrade, call any auctioneer you find on Google. But if you want your auction to be impressive, meaningful, and profitable, you need to call Sherry.

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2012 Oakcrest Anne and CarolinaSherry, personally, I can’t even begin to tell you the immense amount of positive feedback that I received having YOU (and Darby) there with is this year!… Read The Rest “Anne Livaudais Knudsen, 5th year gala co-chair”

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