Classified Growths

I grew up in a broken lower-middle-class home with a father who bought our toaster, radio, record player and other small household possessions secondhand through classified ads. When I accompanied him to a potential seller’s house, I was always embarrassed by how far under the asking price his offer usually was.

“You don’t lose anything by making an offer,” he always told me. “All they can do is say no.”

It was astonishing how often he got what he wanted, at the price he wanted.

I think of my late father almost every time I see advertisements for wine in the “Collectibles” column of The Times Classified Section. The wines are almost invariably big names, at prices I can’t begin to afford, so I figure out what I can afford and I make an offer. If the seller laughs at me, I just shrug and wait for the next ad.

As my father said, it’s amazing how often people say OK or make a much more reasonable counteroffer.

Of course, to buy wine through the want ads, you have to be willing to deal with guys who say things like “Bring cash” and “Meet me in the alley. I’ll be in a red Caddy El Dorado.”

One of my best classified ad wine buys came about three years ago. A man--I’ll call him Randy--was selling his collection. When I called, he told me he planned to retire soon to Arizona and didn’t want to have to worry about arranging transportation or storage for his wine.

Randy had been gradually selling off his collection, but he still had almost 2,000 bottles. He said he didn’t want the hassle of selling them a bottle or two at a time, so he would accept offers only for large purchases--at least $2,000.

That was more than I could afford by myself, but I had recently put together a mini-consortium of several friends who share my interest in wine, and we sometimes buy wine together. I faxed the cellar list to my friends.

There were several good buys--multiple bottles of ’75 Leoville-Barton for $25, ’74 BV Private Reserve and ’83 Palmer for $35 each, ’82 Cos d’Estournel and ’82 Lynch Bages for $45, ’74 Mondavi Reserve and ’75 Palmer for $50.

The wine that intrigued me the most was the legendary ’75 Petrus. Randy had 10 bottles of it at $150 apiece--less than half the going price on the auction market but still way too expensive for me.

I figured that I could probably sell a few of them at a substantial markup, though, and that would pay for my Petrus and for most of the other wine I wanted to buy from Randy as well. I’d never done this before. I buy wine to drink, not to resell. But I knew this was the only way I could ever afford Petrus.

By the time my friends had reviewed Randy’s list, I had--to my astonishment--orders from eight of us for a total of about $8,000. My own part of the order was for 26 bottles, totaling just more than $1,200--my biggest single wine buy ever--but it included some of the Petrus and two or three bottles each of ’75 Cheval Blanc, ’83 Margaux and ’70 Mouton-Rothschild--all wines I can’t usually afford, all at great prices.

Excited, I called Randy to arrange the buy.

“Bring cash,” he said.

“Will you take a cashier’s check?”

“No. Cash-cash. The green stuff.”

His wine was in a large locker in one of those temperature-controlled wine-storage facilities in the San Fernando Valley.

“Meet me in the alley behind the lockers,” he said. “I’ll be in a red Caddy El Dorado,” he said. “Make it 4 o’clock Friday.

“Bring the money.”

This was beginning to sound like a drug deal. Or a kidnapping.

When the day of the rendezvous arrived, I gave my wife Randy’s name, address and telephone number--and the name, address and telephone number of his wine storage facility.

“If you don’t hear from me by 6 o’clock,” I told her, “call the police.”

Four partners gave me cash, and three others wired their money to my bank; Friday afternoon, having arranged for a friend to meet me at the storage facility to help transport the wine (and help discourage any foul play), I withdrew the money from my account, locked the $8,000 in my briefcase and walked briskly to my car.

With the money in the trunk, I drove to the San Fernando Valley. En route, on my car phone, I called a wine-loving friend to tell him about my grand adventure. As soon as I mentioned the $8,000 in cash, he interrupted. “Don’t tell me where you’re going,” he said. “You know how these car phones work; someone could easily overhear us and meet you there. With a gun.”

But Randy was alone, and he turned out to be an amiable fellow. Despite his age--I guessed him to be in his late 60s or early 70s--he effortlessly shifted dozens of wooden cases of wine around in his locker, looking for the ones we wanted.

I had left the money in the trunk of my car, though, and as I was opening one of the wooden crates to examine the wine, my car alarm went off.

Uh-oh.

I raced outside, brandishing the large screwdriver I’d been using to open the wine crate.

“The alarm just went off, all by itself,” said one of three men who were sitting on a stoop, chatting about the wine they had stored inside.

“Yeah,” another said. “Someone must have said Robert Parker’s name too loudly.” They all laughed. Like many wine-lovers, they clearly enjoyed a small joke at the expense of the Most Influential Wine Critic in the World.

I unlocked the trunk, made sure the money was there and took my briefcase inside. An hour later, my friend and I had all the wine loaded and paid for, and I jumped in my car and called my wife--exactly two minutes before she was scheduled to call the police.

I’ve now drunk most of the wines I got from Randy, and all were delicious, although I still haven’t tried the Petrus, half of which I did keep.

But I made an even better haul when I saw a want ad placed by a man in Phoenix whose collection was mostly great names from decidedly off-years (‘57, ’67 and ’72 Lafite; ’63 Margaux; ’73 Ducru-Beaucaillou). Clearly, the man was more a label-buyer than a wine-drinker.

There were, however, a few extraordinary red Bordeaux on the list (a ’59 Latour, ’59 and ’61 Lafites) and several other Bordeaux that also figured to be very good (’64 and ’70 Haut Brion, ’70 Cheval Blanc, ’66 Mouton). He also had two ’69 Burgundies from the Domaine de la Romanee Conti--a La Ta^che and an Echezeaux.

Any of those wines would cost several times more than the $40- to $50-a-bottle limit I normally set for myself, but--thanks, Dad--I figured I might as well make an offer.

I consulted three knowledgeable friends, and the consensus was that if I could get the dozen bottles I wanted for $2,000, it would be a great bargain. After all, the ’59 Lafite and ’59 Latour had sold for more than $350 each at a wine auction just a few days earlier. But $2,000 figured out to almost $170 a bottle--way more than I could afford, bargain or not. I decided to offer $1,000. What was he going to do--send me a poison fax?

When I made my offer, the man’s wife--she was handling the transaction--said they’d expected “a little more.”

“How much more?”

“Maybe $1,600.”

I looked at the list. There were two more bottles that intrigued me. One was another Sauternes, a ’66 Yquem--not a great year but there really are no bad years for Yquem. The other was a ’61 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva from Biondi-Santi.

I told the woman that if she threw in those two, I’d pay $1,200.

She agreed.

“How am I going to get the wine?” I asked.

“My husband is going to drive our daughters to Knott’s Berry Farm tomorrow; he’ll bring them to your house. But he wants cash--money.”

Again, I began to worry: Sensational wines at low prices? Cash only? Free, personal door-to-door delivery from a man I’d never met? And he was going to drive all the way from Phoenix to Southern California just to take his daughters to Knott’s Berry Farm?

Something smelled funny. Had the wines been spoiled in the Arizona heat? Was he going to rip me off?

I called a friend who’s bigger, braver and more knowledgeable about wine than I am and asked him whether he could come to my house at 1:15 the next afternoon, about the time the man from Phoenix was scheduled to arrive.

At 1 o’clock, Mr. Phoenix pulled up in a camper truck. He was wearing cowboy boots and a big smile. He had two young daughters--and my wine--in tow. When I asked why he was selling his wine, he looked sheepish and said, “Well, my dad was really into wine and he got me into it. I’m a developer, and a lot of my friends are developers and lawyers, and they’re into wine, too, so we all built nice cellars and we all bought a lot of wine.

“But I’ve got five kids now, and we just moved to the suburbs. My lifestyle has changed. My new friends aren’t into wine, and I’ve started to realize I just don’t really care that much about it anymore either. I don’t even have a cellar in my new house.”

My friend showed up about this time and we unloaded the wines and examined them. They all looked fine, as near as he and I could tell. Good levels and labels. No sign of leakage. No protruding or sunken corks. The color on the Yquem seemed about right for its age. I gave Mr. Phoenix my money and took possession of the wines.

Several weeks later, I pulled two of the wines and blind-tasted them. The wines looked, smelled and tasted great--much younger than they actually were.

My dad never drank any wine except Manischewitz, but at that moment I knew he was up there, looking down proudly--although, bargain or not, he was no doubt appalled that I’d spent so much money on grape juice.