I called Stephen Mould from Sotheby’s to ask him about the important things in his work and the unique Cheval Blanc auction he was conducting on June the 19th 2009.

How many wine auctions do you typically conduct a month?

We have approximately one sale a month. The only month we don’t have a wine auction is usually in August, when Sotheby’s is on holiday. And we usually have what we call a single-owner sale as well, one or maybe two, because sometimes one sale is not enough to sell a collection.

What things do you consider the most important in the work of an auctioneer?

With wine auctions we have quite lots of absentee bids when people cannot attend the auction. And for wine sales we have much more such people than for other sales because with other sales most people come to the sale room and they can actually see the picture or anything else that is on sale while it’s just the opposite with wine. They can’t see the wine anyway because it is stored in a special warehouse in controlled conditions.

It’s very important before the sale which usually takes place at 11 A.M. to sit down for 20-30 minutes to actually look through the bids just to see if there are any complicated bids to make sure as an auctioneer that there won’t be any surprises.

The other thing is really to be quite relaxed and natural when you’re doing the sale. You have to get up in front of many people and connect with the audience. You discover quite quickly who those people are and what they are going to bid for. Sometimes (but not too often) there are sellers as well who just come to see the sale. Usually you spot different kinds of people by their body language.

You have to keep the concentration during the whole auction, to monitor and keep in mind the increments (bidding steps) you’re using during the auction. And with the absentee bidding you have to be sure you are going along with their requests, because they would leave a bid and we try to maintain the cheapest price we can. You have to mentally make lots of calculations as you are going along. We also have to keep an eye on the telephone bidders, the auction staff manages them.

The other thing is that you have to pace the auction properly, going neither too slow nor too fast. If you are slow, people will get bored, you know, they don’t have a pretty picture in front of them to entertain them. You also have to be respectful to people who are not that fluent in English. Then have to make sure that that particular client understood what you said. On the one hand you have to push the sale and on the other — pull it, where necessary. When you have a very expensive bottle or case you usually would give people some more time to think than with more ordinary lots, when you almost know the final price exactly.

I also think that my appearance is important. You have to be relaxed. At the moment we’ve been selling about 97% of all lots. You get through the lots and you try to sell them, that’s it. Your focus is actually completely at the lot you’re selling at the moment. So when you move to the next lot, you get totally concentrated on it.

You mentioned complicated bids. What actually makes them so complicated?

Sometimes our clients would want to get the whole parcel (big group of similar wine). Sometimes you have 20-50 cases of one wine and if you have one client who wants to buy all the lot, you know he’s going to be a successful bidder, until, of course, somebody overbids him in the sale room or over the telephone. The other thing is that sometimes people would want to buy just a couple of cases off those 30 due to their special condition or something like that. So if it’s a parcel lot, then it’s quite simple. But when for some reasons the bidders come into the game to buy just several cases then you’ve got to be aware of this. That’s what I mean by “complicated”.

Do you keep in mind all those auctions?

I think it’s quite difficult because it’s so many lots you have at each auction. Surely, I would remember some interesting places or some very special lots that I sell for example in 1996 we sold seven bottles of DRC 1995 because it was the first time we had such a lot. So you remember that quite distinctly, you would remember the buyer, you would remember the person on the phone. It sold 135 000 pounds, so you would surely remember that. Or maybe another sale this February when we had so many people in the room that some of them had to wait outside the door. You remember such things.

What were the highlights of the Cheval Blanc auction on the 17th of June 2009?

Yeah, we had a lot of people in the room and about 20 phone bidders. In the room it was about 60 people and for a wine sale it’s quite a lot. We had lots of bids per lot, about 6,5. And amongst the highlights was a magnum Cheval Blanc 1947. It was a high price lot. We had a lot of bidding from Asia, and we had a lot of talking in the room, people were translating my words into Chinese and other languages. So it was taking longer than usual to pass through the lots. The magnum of Cheval Blanc was estimated 10-12 thousand pounds and it finally went for 16 000 + buyers premium, that is 18 500. It was quite an electric atmosphere because the prices were going so high. There were one or two people in the room eager to bid for some specific lots out there and I knew that there were buying not for investment but to taste the wines. I knew who they were; I can picture them in my mind now. They were very strong in their bidding, however they didn’t manage to get everything they wanted and you could see disappointment on their face at those moments.

There was one buyer who specially came from Barcelona to bid for some bottles. They came specifically for the sale and they only managed to pick up one lot. And when I was talking to her after the sale she told me that it was already a joy just to come to the auction and it was very interesting to see it live. So although she didn’t get everything, she enjoyed it anyway.

How do you see that a person has finished bidding?

Usually you get to a point when you can sense that. Then you wait a little and stress the point saying “I’m going to sell the lot now”. If anybody else is going to bid, they will come back at this moment. There are some people who will wait until the last moment and step in just a moment before the hummer comes down. To make these people bid you usually stress once again that you’re going to sell the wine now and sound its price once again. Sometimes you can tell that somebody stopped bidding because the person who was bidding actively before is showing this very clearly. So you say “Any other bids anybody else?” and then the hummer goes down. I guess it’s like driving: you get an instinct for those things.

Can you say that the main reasons for disappointment for the European clients are buyers from Asia?

Well, I wouldn’t say they buy everything, but it’s true, a lot of lots go to Asia, the usually the most expensive ones. And there are people in the room who just cannot afford the prices they pay.

How long did the Cheval Blanc auction last?

I would say that for my part it lasted about 2 hours. I was doing my bids for half of 287 lots of Cheval Blanc. The other half was done by Claire Collini, about a hundred lots. Actually two hours is a long time for such number of lots. We had sales when I was doing such a quantity for a mere hour. But this time there were mostly individual items: this is why it took so long.

What is the order of lots offered during the auction?

It depends on the collection, for example in that sale we put the Cheval Blanc collection first. We can also alter the time the auction starts if we think that the lots would be more appealing to the American market. In this case we will put it in the afternoon. Within the Cheval Blanc collection we put everything more or less in the vintage order. But in this collection we had some very interesting outstanding lots, 2-3 bottles or 30 bottles vertical and we would put it to the end of the section. Within the Cheval Blanc we ordered them by vintage and bottle sizes.

Of course, they also plan the order of the lots for people not to get bored, for people to get some breathing space. They can “dilute” the finer lots with younger wines, in order not to gather all the “good” stuff in one place and all the “bad” stuff in another place. We also look at the official classification of wines, usually putting Medoc wines first, Saint-Emillion and Pomerol second, and within them also put higher classified wines first.

Did you feel some special interest and excitement for any of the lots of Cheval Blanc auction?

Yes, of course, especially for highly praised lots like ’47 and ‘21. I wouldn’t say there was a break of applause like in American movies, but certainly you get some kind of pause just before the hummer falls and a sigh just after. It is an exciting thing for an auctioneer when you get lots of bids and a lot of hands for every item. There is so much interest for some lots that some people just keep their hands up you can see them immediately with their willing to buy. Sometimes prices can escalate quite quickly and usually it’s a bit slower over the phone.

When you see a lot of hands up for one lot, how do you choose?

It’s really the one that you spotted first, nothing more. You just have to use your instinct.

What do you do if there are 50 telephone bidders who want to participate and you have 20 lines only?

We act on a “first come – first served” basis. But we never had situations when somebody was unable to bid over the phone. We actually can adapt to the needs of our clients and increase the number of lines by the time of the auction.