Our Story
Bacchus Wine Auctions - the trusted auctioneers
Our Story
Bacchus Wine Auctions was set up in 2016 by Chris Hambleton, who has a career of over 25 years across the retail and wholesale wine trade, wine auctions, wine tasting events and WSET training. As an experienced collector of fine wines himself, he was tired of seeing unscrupulous practice by auction houses, high fees for both buyers and sellers and generalists claiming to be specialists in wine.
Chris set out to resolve his frustrations from the industry – a lack of due diligence and care and a focus only on the bottom line – and created a wine auction proposition for both buyers and sellers that refocused on the product at heart. His vision was to bring high-quality wines from around the world to each auction, validated by a team of passionate wine specialists. Chris also focused on bring a completely personal service to both buyers and sellers.
Today, Bacchus Wine Auctions is the UK’s only full-service auction house that deals exclusively with wines and spirits, and nothing else. Our team are highly experienced, dedicated and passionate about what they do – each individual is very, very good at what they do. Above all, we care.
That’s why when you buy wine at auction from Bacchus, you can trust that it has passed our stringent checks for authenticity, provenance and as far as we possibly can – drinkability! As an auctioneer we sell wines on behalf of others – we do not buy-in direct and sell-on as a retailer would. But we don’t accept all wines we are asked to sell – we carefully check them to ensure only high-quality and genuine wines are brought forward at auction.
Many of our buyers also sell their wines through our auctions – great testament that we truly care about both our buyers and our sellers. Our commission structure is both fair and competitive on both sides – in fact you will find that we are the best in the business!
We sell the same outstanding wines as some of the more extravagant auctions that you may have come across. The difference here at Bacchus Wine Auctions is that as a buyer you will pay a lot less in commission and as a seller you will take home a greater portion of the sale price, plus have a friendly team on hand before, during and after all of our auctions.
Our Vision & Principles
‘Unique’ is a word that is used far too often and usually qualified with ‘very’ or ‘almost’, which of course are both impossible. ‘Unique’ means to be one of a kind and that is exactly what you will find Bacchus Wine Auctions to be.
Our principles guide how we run Bacchus Wine Auctions:
- Authenticity – we check all the wines we sell very carefully and refuse to sell any wine we suspect of being fake or out of condition
- Truth – we will value your wine as accurately as possible – telling you the honest truth about it’s value, quality and condition
- Personal Touch – we are a family run business, but it’s more than a business to us… we really care about our customers. We often deal with the family of a deceased wine collector, or someone who has been sold wine investments which have turned out to be worth less than they paid. Our ethical service and personal consideration of your needs as our customers is second to none.
- Expert – we don’t sell clocks, stamps or paintings, only wines and spirits. We know a lot about wines and spirits, so will offer you our full professional expertise and recommendations.