Ten questions to ask before you pay.

The rare wine market has been embarrassed publicly more than once, and always in the same way: an engaging seller, an extraordinary bottle, a story that explained why it had never been seen before, and no paper. The defence is not expertise in glass and labels, although that helps. It is a habit of asking the same ten questions every time, of everyone, including people you like.

The ten questions

1. Where did this bottle come from, by name? Not "a European private cellar". Which cellar, whose, and

when did it leave.

1. Who has owned it since? Every hand the bottle has passed through is a link in the chain, and a missing

link is the only part that matters.

1. Can I see the original invoice, or the document from the estate? Paper from 1970 is not proof of

authenticity, but forgers rarely bother to manufacture a consistent forty-year paper trail for one bottle.

1. How has it been stored, and can that be evidenced? A warehouse statement with dates is worth more than

any adjective.

1. What is the fill level, in the seller's own words? If the answer is "good for its age" rather than a

term like top shoulder, the seller has not looked properly or does not want to say.

1. Has it been recorked? Several first growths run recorking programmes, and a recorked bottle is topped

up with a younger wine. It is not a flaw, it is a fact, and it must be disclosed.

1. Is the capsule original and intact? A replaced capsule is the commonest way to hide a tampered cork.
2. Does the glass belong to the period? Bottle shape, seam, punt depth and glass colour changed over the

decades, and a 1940s wine in 1990s glass ends the conversation.

1. What happens if it turns out to be wrong? Ask for the answer in writing before you pay. A seller who

will not put a return position in an email will not honour one on the telephone.

1. Why is it available at this price? There is always an answer. When there isn't, that is the answer.

Where the risk actually concentrates

The pattern is consistent across every documented case.

• The most expensive names, because the margin justifies the effort: Pétrus, Romanée-Conti, Lafite,

Mouton, Le Pin.

• Pre-1960 vintages, where few living people have a reference point for what the bottle should look like.
• Large formats, which are rarer, more valuable, and far less often seen, so anomalies pass.
• Wines with a famous single vintage, where one year is worth many times its neighbours and a digit is the

whole difference.

Notice that a bottle can be entirely genuine and still be a bad purchase. Heat damage leaves no trace on a label. A bottle that spent a summer in a Milanese apartment in 1998 is authentic, documented, and dead.

What good practice looks like from the other side

We sell from one cellar, which makes this easier for us than for a merchant aggregating from many sources, and that is worth saying rather than dressing up as virtue.

• The bottles come from a single private cellar assembled over four decades by its owner, who buys to keep.
• Fill level, label, capsule and original case are described in writing before anything moves, in plain terms.

A 1946 Pétrus with a very top-shoulder fill is offered as a very top-shoulder fill.

• Where a wine was bought from a named source with documents, we say so. The

1961 Latour ex Berry Bros. & Rudd Family Reserves is described that way because that is where it came from.

• Quantities are often one, and we say that too, because it changes how you should think about the price. That

is the subject of the note on single bottles.