Asian wine buyers sometimes ask if European fine wine being sold in the U.S. bears U.S. import labels based on some concern that such wine has been handled more often and is at greater risk of being damaged than wine sourced directly from Europe.
This rationale fails on several counts:
- Unless the wine is from a newly released vintage, it will likely have been handled by multiple parties already, whether American or European.
- The seller of the wine (the retailer or auction house) has a reputation to maintain for selling wine of sound provenance. In Vinfolio's case, in addition to questioning the seller on purchase sources and storage conditions, all wine is inspected according to our inspection guidelines before purchase.
- Rare wine is simply not abundant enough for buyers to refuse to source wine from the entire U.S. market. Note that all wine imported into the U.S. must comply with federal wine labeling regulations. Either the wine's official U.S. importer creates a U.S.-specific label which is applied overseas before importing (see Petrus photo) or the wine is sourced directly in Europe through trade channels and supplemental "strip labels" are added to the European label to satisfy the U.S. requirements (a common practice).
An upcoming test in Hong Kong
As I have been paying close attention to the Hong Kong market given our decision to launch operations there, I noted that Acker Merrall's upcoming May 31 wine auction, the largest ever in Asia, is sourced from six American collections and two European ones. Does anyone really think bidders will pass on the American-sourced wine? I don't.
