99 BOTTLES OF WINE ON THE BLOCK : 99 BOTTLES OF WINE : TAKE ONE DOWN, SELL IT AROUND : 98 BOTTLES OF WINE ON THE BLOCK : A Day in the Life of a Wine-Auction Maven

Eight years ago, on the fourth anniversary of the day we met on a blind date, Lucy and I got married in Milan, where her parents were then living. At our wedding lunch, we drank a wonderful wine. It was a Barolo, a full-flavored, long-lived red wine made from the Nebbiolo grape, which takes its name from the autumn haze (nebbia) that often shrouds the hilly vineyards about 75 miles southwest of Milan. Barolo--known in Italy as “the king of wines, the wine of kings”--has long been one of my favorite wines, and this particular Barolo came from an excellent year (1971) and from the best vineyard (Monprivato) of one of Italy’s best winemakers (Giuseppe Mascarello).

Shortly after we returned home from our honeymoon, I began looking for more of the ’71 Mascarello; I thought it would be romantic to drink a bottle of our wedding wine every year on our anniversary. But retail wine stores are about as likely to stock 17-year-old Italian wines as retail bookstores are to stock 17-year-old Italian novels these days; fortunately, however, I had been introduced to the excitement and allure of wine auctions about a year before our marriage.

Having grown up in a lower-middle-class household in which seltzer and Postum were the beverages of choice, I knew virtually nothing about wine until I was in my late 30s and had developed a passion for food. But even on the first two of what quickly became annual gastronomic pilgrimages to France, I ordered white wine--cheap white wine--with everything, even red meat. I didn’t realize then that certain wines make what the French call “un bon mariage” with certain foods--that the fruit in an elegant red Burgundy, for example, complements the vaguely sweetish flavor of good lamb, or that the rich, robust flavors of Barolo (which I’d never heard of then) somehow both softened and amplified the chewy, grainy sharpness of Parmigiano cheese. Gradually, however, as my food passion became both an obsession and my only extravagance, I began to learn about wine--to taste it and study it and to appreciate it as the perfect accompaniment to food. I even began to take my own wine, as well as my own food, on airplanes, wherever I traveled.

I bought younger, relatively inexpensive wines at first--$15, $20, occasionally $30 a bottle--but I didn’t like the rough taste of many young wines (I still don’t), and I wanted to get some older wines to drink while the best of my new wines matured and their flavors smoothed out. I couldn’t (and still can’t) afford to buy really old wines, but I found that if I bought carefully at wine auctions, I could afford some moderately aged wines.

When I first heard about wine auctions, the very phrase conjured images of pin-striped investment bankers bidding on $15,000 bottles of hundred-year-old wines. Then I went to my first, in Los Angeles, conducted by the then 122-year-old San Francisco firm of Butterfield & Butterfield. One bottle of wine sold that day for $2,200. But many other bottles sold for less than $50, and a significant number sold for less than $20. Buyers included the expected doctors, lawyers, captains of industry and Serious Collectors, as well as many restaurateurs and wine retailers. But other buyers were schoolteachers, businessmen and assorted curiosity-seekers, all eager for a bargain--or for a wine to serve at a special birthday or anniversary dinner.

I didn’t buy any wine at my first auction. I just watched and listened. The only voice in the room was that of the auctioneer as he announced each sale and recognized each raised paddle in rapid-fire fashion--”$200, $220, $240, $260, $280--sold to bidder No. 175 for $280.” As in all auctions, the bidding procedure at wine auctions requires automatic increments at each price level, with larger increments at higher levels: If someone bids $80, the next bid is $90; if someone bids $700, the next bid is $750, and so on. I was stunned, then bewildered, then captivated by the speed with which the wines were sold--220 to 240 “lots” an hour, an average of about one “lot” every 15 seconds. (A “lot” is most often a 12-bottle case of a single wine, but it can be anything from one bottle to 15 or 20 or more bottles of several different wines.)

I’ve always enjoyed making quick calculations--and quick decisions--and I found myself fascinated by the auction process. I began to bid at the next Butterfield auction (they’re conducted simultaneously in Los Angeles and San Francisco about eight times a year) and also at the Christie’s and Chicago Wine Company auctions, then both held in Chicago. You can bid in person, by fax or by phone, and I did all three; one Saturday, I took our son Lucas, then 2, to his weekly play group and--cellular phone in one hand, portable phone in another--I managed to bid at both the Butterfield and Christie’s auctions within minutes of each other.

A week or so before each auction, I study the catalogs, noting the descriptions of the various wines to be offered and consulting my various books and files to compare expert evaluations and the price estimates in the catalog. I set a limit for each lot I want to bid on--generally about $35 to $45 a bottle now--and I steadfastly resist “auction fever”; no matter how much I want a particular wine, no matter how many unsuccessful bids I’ve made at a given auction, no matter how many hours I’ve been sitting in the auction room, I don’t bid a dollar more than my predetermined limit. Despite this restraint, I’ve managed to buy several hundred bottles of wine for myself and various friends over the past eight years, at an average price of about $38 per bottle--and I’ve had great fun doing it.

It wasn’t until 17 months after our marriage, however, that the ’71 Mascarello we had drunk at our wedding lunch finally showed up at auction. Two bottles. I paid $50 apiece for them, a stiff price but about half what a restaurant would charge and--what the hell--it was for Our Wedding Anniversary. Sixteen months later, at another auction, I found six more bottles, and this time I “stole” them for a mere $37 apiece. I’ve since found 12 more bottles, which means--as I recently told Lucy--she can’t leave me until 2009.

But I haven’t bought much wine at auction in the past year or so. Ever since New York legalized wine auctions in 1993, the number of auctions has more than doubled, the amount of wine bought and sold at auction has more than tripled and, despite the fundamental economic principle that an increase in the quantity and availability of a given product is supposed to drive prices lower, wine prices have gone through the auction house roof.

Last fall, though, I received a most enticing mailing for a Davis & Co. auction in Chicago. The catalog listed several lots of my two favorites--Burgundy and Barolo--from winemakers and years I like, at what appeared to be reasonable estimates. I showed the catalog to several friends with whom I buy wine collectively--a shifting mini-consortium of three to five wine-lovers, most of whom are in roughly the same income bracket as I am. I put the consortium together because, while some wines may be great buys at, say, $35 a bottle, I might not have the necessary funds or space or interest if they’re only available in case lots; with my “consortium,” I can still bid on these wines, and if I get them, we can divide them up. That means I get to bid on--and buy--more wine at auction than I would if I bid just for myself; I get more “action” and more wine.

Most of the members of my consortium are writers and academics, but one--Piero Selvaggio--is the owner of Valentino, Posto and Primi restaurants, and when I showed him the Davis & Co. catalog, he looked first at “The Voltolina Collection”--235 lots of rare, perfectly stored wine, most of it from France and Italy, all from the estate of Dr. Eugene Voltolina, a prominent neuropsychiatrist in suburban Chicago. Many people who sell wine at auction do so because the wine collector in the family died. Many others do so because they need the money or got divorced or suddenly realize they have more wine than they’ll ever be able to drink. Virtually all sell anonymously. But when Voltolina died early last year, his family wanted to honor his memory by making a large portion of his collection the public centerpiece of a Davis & Co. auction.

“This is the best collection of Italian wines I’ve ever seen for sale,” Piero said. He wanted me to bid on 25 or 30 Voltolina lots for him--and on about a dozen other lots from other cellars as well. Since I sometimes buy a few bottles from a lot that he gets, I was almost as excited as he was. That’s when I decided I had to figure out how to get to Chicago so I could bid in person.

CHICAGO: THE TASTING

Today’s Davis & Co. auction will be preceded by a tasting of some of the wines to be auctioned off. Admission to the tasting--and to a lunch during a midday break in the action--costs $65. It’s a great bargain. Although lunch at these events is always forgettable, the tasting provides an opportunity for the big spenders to sample wines before they decide whether to bid on them--and it gives novices and those on a budget (like me) a chance to taste, for a relatively small charge, a wide variety of high-quality, expensive wines that we could never otherwise afford. Today the Davis staff will pour small tastes of 55 different wines, 14 of which routinely sell at auction for $100 to $600 a bottle.

The tasting will begin at 10 a.m., the auction itself at 11, but at 9, would-be bidders are already crowding the second-floor hallway in the century-old University Club, where the auction will take place. Michael Davis, the boyish-looking, 41-year-old president of Davis & Co., is walking briskly around the tasting room, sampling a few of the better bottles himself. He checks his watch and steps up to a table on which eight bottles of white Burgundy are sitting. He pours a couple of sips of the 1978 Montrachet from the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, a great vintage of what many think is the finest white wine in the world. (In the United States, where we identify wines by their grape variety rather than by the region where they’re grown, this wine would be known as a Chardonnay.)

“Oh my God--that’s unbelievable,” he exclaims, dazzled by the wine’s buttery, almost smoky flavors. He grins mischievously, checks his watch again and casts a covetous eye at the bottle of Montrachet. “Can’t we keep the doors closed another 30 minutes?” he asks his staff. “Maybe we could paint the windows black and . . . .”

When the doors are opened, the bidders practically knock one another over in their zeal to get to the best wines. A wine bottle holds less than a quart, and even with tiny tastes, these bottles won’t last long among 140 supplicants. The biggest crowds race to the 1978 Montrachet and to the 1966, 1978 and 1985 La Tache, one of six red Burgundies (what we call “Pinot Noir”) also made by the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, whose wines are among the best, rarest and costliest on the planet. Some of the people jostling for space at the tasting tables are immaculately groomed, in coats and ties; others are in Levi’s, unpressed shirts and hair that does not appear to have been washed (or cut) this year. Twelve minutes after the doors open, the 1978 Montrachet is gone. Five minutes later, the ’78 La Tache is a dead soldier as well.

THE MORNING SESSION

At 11:03, Davis glides into the elegant but dimly lit Monroe Room, adjacent to the tasting room, and steps up to the podium. From his perch, he looks out on a sea of brown leather chairs, all of them filled by the 200 predominantly male bidders. British oak walls and massive stained-glass windows line the room. On the vaulted ceiling high above are 42 oil paintings depicting a Gothic chase and feast. Davis has a quick, dry wit, and unlike most other wine auctioneers--who drone on, lot after lot and hour after hour, much in the manner of bored fourth-graders reciting their geography homework--he always manages to inject a wry comment or two into the proceedings. This morning, he begins the auction by apologizing for the near-zero wind-chill temperatures outside. Then he smiles and says: “But to those of you here from the West Coast, I’d just like to tell you I think it’s good for your soul to finally feel temperatures colder than your wine cellar.”

There are a number of bidders here today from Los Angeles and San Francisco--and scores more from Washington, New York, Florida, Texas . . . . There are even a couple of bidders on hand from Tokyo. Almost 300 other would-be buyers have faxed in bids from 33 states and nine foreign countries.

Davis begins the auction with “Lot No. 1--a jeroboam of 1989 Haut-Brion.” A jeroboam is a huge bottle, the equivalent of six normal bottles; Haut-Brion is a great French red wine from the Graves region of Bordeaux, and it’s widely regarded as the single best wine of the very good 1989 vintage. Haut-Brion is usually well beyond my price range in any vintage, but because Lucas was born in 1989, I ordered six bottles of it before it was released. I paid $64 a bottle--more than I’d ever paid for a new bottle of wine. The catalog estimate for the jeroboam at auction today is $800 to $900, but bidders quickly drive the price to $1,300, the equivalent of more than $200 per normal bottle--more than triple what I paid for it. The next two lots also sell for substantially more than the catalog estimates. I may be in for a long day.

Bargains kick in quickly, though. Good French Bordeaux from the 1970s and ‘80s sell for $18 and $20 a bottle. Several respected California Cabernets (B.V. Private Reserve and Diamond Creek among them) sell for $23 to $26 a bottle. Then, shortly after noon, Davis sells a bottle of 1961 Chateau Latour, generally thought to be one of the greatest wines of all time. Robert Parker, a highly respected, Maryland-based writer whose numerical ratings of wines influence sales and prices more than anyone else in the world, gives the Latour a perfect 100-point score and describes it as “one of the biggest and richest wines I have ever tasted.” Seven years ago, I went to a Butterfield auction in Los Angeles with an investment banker friend named Jack, who makes more money in a year than I do in a decade. There was a case of ’61 Latour available at that auction, and Jack wanted it. Lucy was pregnant with Lucas at the time, and a mutual friend was expecting a child on practically the same day. I called her husband Larry the day before the auction and said: “If Jack buys the Latour, why don’t we . . . buy one of the bottles from him. It’ll probably cost us about--gulp!--$300, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime wine for a once-in-a-lifetime event. We can drink it with Lucy and Karen to celebrate when our kids are born.”

Jack bought the case (for the expected $3,600), and we got our one $300 bottle. But when I proudly told the auctioneer what we planned to do with it, he was appalled; he thought the ’61 Latour, then 28 years old, was still much too young to drink.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “To celebrate the birth of two infants, you’re going to slaughter a third?”

The wine is still in my cellar, and as I hear Davis sell another bottle of it today for $700, I’m fleetingly tempted to save ours and turn it into an annuity for our kids in their old age. But unlike many auction buyers, I never buy to sell--only to drink. For me, wine is a pleasure, not an investment. Oh well, maybe Lucas will marry Larry and Karen’s daughter Sarah, and we can all drink it on their wedding day.

Less than an hour before the lunch break, Davis auctions off the first lots in the Voltolina collection, one of which--a magnum (double-bottle) of 1864 Lafite-Rothschild--will prove to be the most expensive bottle of the day, at $6,500. Most of the other Voltolina lots also sell at stratospheric prices. Then--suddenly, finally--it’s time for the first lot of the day that I want to bid on: Six bottles of assorted red Burgundy. Given their pedigreed provenance, I’m prepared to go as high as $300--$50 a bottle. The estimate is $260 to $320, so I figure I have a chance. Hah! The bidding zooms to $420, and before I know it, “my” wine is gone. I don’t even get my bidding paddle off my lap.

A few lots later, Davis auctions off several white Burgundies that I had originally marked in my catalog. But two of them seemed flat at this morning’s tasting, so I’ve scratched them from my list. Then the ’78 Montrachet--the star of the tasting--comes up; six bottles sell for $4,400--more than $700 a bottle.

THE AFTERNOON SESSION

With only one of the elevators in the University Club working, I run down seven flights of stairs from the ninth-floor lunchroom to the Monroe Room, arriving just in time to be outbid on the first of the lots that Piero wanted from the Voltolina collection. Damn!

Piero buys wine at auction primarily for Valentino, which--despite the loss of 18,000 bottles in the Northridge earthquake--still has one of the finest wine lists in the world (more than 125,000 bottles, representing 2,200 different wines). His wine list is very fairly priced, but he is a businessman; he has to buy wine reasonably enough to be able to mark it up, sell it and make a profit. So he’s careful, and I stay within the bidding limits he gives me.

I make one more unsuccessful bid for Piero before we finally score--an assortment of Barolos and Barbarescos (also made from the Nebbiolo grape). Piero had authorized me to bid $750 for the eight bottles; I get them for “only” $600. Davis occasionally acknowledges successful bidders by name from the podium, and when it’s clear that mine is the top bid on this lot, he looks in my direction, grins broadly and says: “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your touch, David.”

I first met Davis when he was the auctioneer at Christie’s, a job he fell into through a series of accidents. On the day in 1979 that he was supposed to start work at a major New York advertising agency, his job was given to “someone’s nephew.” Moments later, he heard about an opening in Christie’s New York office. “I had nothing else to do so I strolled over,” he says. “I was a very cocky 24-year-old who didn’t take the notion of working for them very seriously, so I was very relaxed and had a great interview.” When Christie’s offered Davis a job, he took it. He worked on various painting, furniture and silver auctions, and then, in 1980, he was asked to accompany the company’s distinguished wine guru, Michael Broadbent, to the annual charity wine auction in the Napa Valley, as a last-minute replacement for a senior vice president who had taken ill. Davis liked wine, enjoyed the experience and, on his return to New York, gradually became more involved in Christie’s wine department. When the New York liquor lobby pressured the State Legislature to prohibit wine auctions in that state in 1982, Christie’s moved its wine operation to Chicago and Davis was put in charge. When Christie’s closed its U.S. wine department temporarily in 1993, Davis and two of his Christie’s colleagues, Paul Hart and Paul Steiner, formed Davis & Co. (Meanwhile, New York wine retailers, belatedly realizing that the auction market was a potential gold mine, fought to rescind the ban they’d earlier lobbied for--only this time they specified that all wine auctions had to be conducted by or in conjunction with . . . a New York wine retailer. Christie’s reentered the U.S. wine market in 1994--with the discount wine retailer Zacky’s as its partner; three other New York wine merchants also conduct several wine auctions a year now.)

Bidding on the Voltolina wines is frantic today. Prices are high. I bid on two more lots for Piero and lose both. Then I get one. Then we’re outbid on seven lots in three minutes. Forty seconds later, I get another lot for Piero. Then another. Then I’m outbid on nine lots in a row. Then I get one for Piero and miss one for Piero. This is exciting. I’ve never made so many bids on so many lots in so short a time. That helps compensate for the only aspect of Davis auctions that I don’t like--the relatively slow pace he maintains. He sells about 125 lots an hour, half the speed of Butterfield, and while some bidders find even that too fast, I much prefer the Butterfield approach; auctioneers there zip through the bidding, often without fully describing the lots, then say “Sold,” often without even banging the hammer down before moving on to the next lot--and never pausing, as Davis usually does, to permit a last-second bid.

Absentee buyers, bidding by fax, usually snatch up more than half the lots at any wine auction, but the Voltolina collection has drawn so many live bidders that absentees will get only about a third of today’s lots. Davis acts as a surrogate for the absentee bidders, calling out their bids at the appropriate increment level on each lot. When an absentee bidder is successful, he’ll say: “This lot is on its way to Switzerland” or “This is on its way to Puerto Rico” or . . . .

Davis also keeps bidders updated on the nearby Northwestern-Penn State football game (“Northwestern 7, Penn State 0 in the first quarter”), and he speaks often about the excellent, climate-controlled cellars from which the various wines come. Since excessive heat, cold, dryness or temperature fluctuation can ruin wine, these testimonials often mean higher bids--which please both the owner/consignor of the wine and Davis himself; his company collects a 15% premium from the seller and a 10% premium from the buyer on the final “hammer price” of each lot. (Most of the other auction houses, including Butterfield & Butterfield, charge buyers 15%.)

As lots continue to sell at generally high prices, Davis tells the steadily dwindling crowd, “Stick around. There will be bargains at the end of the day. I promise you.” Probably so. But I’d like to buy something for myself soon. Although bidding for Piero has been fun and I may buy a few bottles from his haul for myself, it’s mostly been vicarious fun; I can feel my long-standing resolve not to go over budget on my own purchases beginning to weaken.

At 3 o’clock, one of the lots I want most comes up--two bottles of a great red Burgundy from 1969, a great year. I drank it once and thought it one of the best wines I’d ever tasted. The catalog estimate is $80 to $100--$40 to $50 a bottle. I can’t believe it will go that cheaply, and I decide I’ll go to $80 a bottle--almost unprecedented for me but still a “bargain” for a wine this great. If I get it, I’ll save it for a special occasion.

Fat chance.

The lot sells for $420--$210 a bottle.

A few minutes later, an assortment of California wines sells for $15 a bottle. Too bad I tend to prefer French and Italian wines to California wines. With a few notable exceptions, California wines seem too heavy, too alcoholic, too one-dimensional to me; I drink wine solely as an accompaniment to food, and I generally find that California wines overpower food, rather than complement it. I can’t take advantage of the bargains on many California wines today, and I skip several reasonably priced lots from Bordeaux as well. Over the last couple of years, I’ve increasingly found that I prefer Burgundy to the often heavier, Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines of Bordeaux, which were the first red wines I really liked.

Several lots of Burgundy that won’t come up for a couple of hours are the wines I think I have the best chance to buy today, but I’m soon fidgeting in my seat, eager to bid on two other Burgundy lots, both from 1985, a superb vintage. Again, I’m outbid on both. Then a fabulous Bordeaux, the 1982 Pichon-Lalande, sells for $150 a bottle; when that wine was first released, I bought four bottles for $19.95 each. I love watching “my” wines sell for outrageous prices at auctions. Wine is the only thing I’ve ever bought that increased in value, and I luxuriate in that knowledge, even though I know I’ll be drinking, not banking, my “profits.”

“Halftime score,” Davis says. “Northwestern 14, Penn State 7.”

Now I’m ready to bid for both Piero and me on a mixed lot of 10 Chiantis. The estimate is $200 to $240. We’re prepared to bid $280. One of the challenges of auction buying is deciding whether to go with strategy or instinct. Sometimes you stick your paddle up early and vigorously and just leave it up, with your arm fully extended, to show the entire room that you’re in for keeps, determined to get this lot, no matter what it costs. That discourages some bidders, and you might get it cheaply. Other times, you wait to see how the early bidding goes and don’t even bother to bid until the auctioneer is about to bring down the gavel. This time I adapt the latter strategy. I don’t raise my paddle at all while Davis calls out the bids--”$180, $190, $200, $220, $240, $260.” He’s about to sell “our” Chiantis for $260. I stick up my paddle at the last possible second. He looks my way. “Sold for $280 to Paddle No. 2.” All right!

I’m outbid on the next lot that Piero wants and on one for myself as well. Then I get one for Piero--at $50 less than his top bid--and just miss another, shortly before Davis announces the final score of the football game--”Northwestern 21, Penn State 10.”

About 5:30, we head into a long run of Burgundy lots. I plan to bid on five of them for myself and would be happy to get two. This is what I’ve been looking forward to all day. Davis announces “Lot 758”--12 bottles, four of each of three different 1987 red Burgundies, a much underrated vintage that’s ideal for drinking now. The catalog estimate is $420 to $480. I’m prepared to bid $480--$40 a bottle. The bidding starts at $280, then goes to $300, $320, $350. Again I put my paddle up last. I get the lot for $380--just under $32 a bottle. Excellent!

Thirty seconds later, Davis is auctioning off another 12-bottle lot of ’87 Burgundies, also four bottles each of three different wines, from even better winemakers than the first lot I got. I really want this lot, and I’m prepared to pay $600 for it--$50 a bottle. This time, even before Davis announces the opening bid, I defiantly stick my paddle high in the air and keep it there throughout the bidding, daring anyone to challenge me. Several bidders accept the challenge. Paddles are up all around the room as Davis intones, “$380, $400, $420, $450, $480, $500.” But at the end, my paddle is the only one still up. I get the wine for $500--a little less than $42 a bottle. Elated, I decide to pass on the other Burgundy lots. Then, just as I’m thinking I might be through for the day, Davis opens the bidding on a lot I’d somehow overlooked--a single bottle of 1965 Chateau d’Yquem, the world’s greatest dessert wine. It’s not a good year, but the people who run d’Yquem are virtually alone among winemakers in refusing to bottle their wine in a really bad year; they just dump the grapes and take the loss. In a good year, I can’t afford d’Yquem; I probably can’t afford it in an off-year either. But my oldest friends were married in 1965; it would be nice to buy this bottle and surprise them with it when Lucy and I take them out to dinner to celebrate their 30th anniversary later this month. I decide I’ll bid $100 for it. Hell, Barbara and Lou are really special; I’ll go to $150, my highest auction bid ever. Well, it’s a nice thought. The d’Yquem sells for $220.

The crowd has continued to shrink throughout the late afternoon and early evening, and by 7 p.m., nearing the end of this 1,297-lot marathon, there are only 22 of us left. Davis speeds up the bidding considerably. As promised, there are bargains galore, especially among California Cabernets, many of which sell for under $10 a bottle. “Priced to move,” Davis says, “priced to move.” I get a final lot for Piero as prices continue to plummet. “See,” Davis says. “I told you guys to stay to the bitter end. Is this worth it or not?”

A mediocre white Burgundy from 1977, a dreadful vintage, comes up, and Davis can’t even get $4 a bottle for it. “Come on,” he says. “At $50 a case, you can give it as Christmas presents to your least favorite friends.” No takers. But all is not lost. Davis sells the 18th- and 19th-century Madeiras from the Voltolina collection, some for as high as $650 a bottle, then closes out the auction with ports, and the final lot, five bottles of Calvados for $110.

It’s 8:30 p.m. I’ve been at the University Club for 12 hours. I’m exhausted--and an hour late for my dinner reservation. But I’m also exhilarated. I got 24 bottles of good Burgundy, plus, if I want, a few bottles of Piero’s Barolos. Lucy likes to joke that she’s never seen me happier in the vertical position than when I come home from a wine auction, but she also said, very early in my auction odyssey, “This plays to your strengths,” and in a sense, she’s right. I keep voluminous files on things that interest me, and I love research and doing math in my head and making quick decisions and trying to figure out what other people--even complete strangers--are likely to do in a given situation. At a wine auction, I get to do all that--and when I’m through, I have wine for my cellar and my dinners and my friends.

As I leave the University Club, I find myself running through the cold Chicago night to a restaurant several blocks away. Even though I trip and fall, I feel much the same sense of exultation that I remember feeling 20 years ago when I ran from the theater to my car after having watched the telecast of one of my heroes, Muhammad Ali, win a stunning upset victory over George Foreman.

I just wish I could pick up a couple of bottles of my auction wine right now and take it to dinner.