What to do with Dad's wine collection?

[owl]

My father past away a couple of years ago and since then i have been trying to figure out what to do with this interesting collection of wines. I am not a wine drinker or interested in collecting. I am told that some of these may be of value to a collector. My father lived in Temecula Ca for 30 years and was friends with many of the foundation vintners of the valley( John Poole, the cillerzo's, etc.)Examples of what is in the collection include a 1977 Callaway "sweet nancy",1974 Callaway chenin blanc,76 sauvignon blanc dry, 77 Zinfandel. There are also some interesting italian wines Antoniri bianco 1975 in a fish bottle. My list of questions is long for I know little to nothing about wine.How do you tell if a wine is still good without opening it? How do you find someone that would be interested in wines like these? Is there a good resource without buying a whole library of reference books.Since this is my first post on this board I will stop with these three questions and see what happens. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated....

Owl

[Innkeeper]

Hi Owl, and welcome to the Wine Board. Too bad Dad didn't have time to drink his wines. Of those listed, only the zinfandel has any chance of having any life left in it. Give it to someone who likes wine with a warning that it is probably over the hill. Dispose of the rest. None that you listed have any market value.

[winoweenie]

Hi owl and welcome to the board. There is a chance the sweet nancy stood the ravages of time depending on the residual sugar that was in this vintage. As IK said the rest are probably history. One way to find out is have one of your drinking friends over and pop them corks. WW