Sotheby's Hong Kong Wine Sale

I have been traveling for a few days, so please forgive the few skipped posts.  I was in Chicago for an International Society of Appraisers Board meeting.  We had a very busy agenda with some outside presentations, open discussions/strategic planning as well as our regular meeting.  We welcome Sally Ambose, ISA CAPP to the board, and I was re-elected to the position of Treasurer.  We accomplished much and I look for many new initiatives in coming months from ISA.

Bloomberg has a good recap of the recent wine sale in Hong Kong.  Perhaps the most interesting item is that out of the last 6 wine sales in Hong Kong, all have obtained a 100% sales rate.  That is correct, 100% of the lots over the past 6 sales in Hong Kong have sold.  Certainly reinforces the idea of the strength of the economy, puchasing power and allure of luxury goods are in the east. 284 lots were offered, bringing a total of $8.4 million, more than triple the pre sale high estimate of $2.5 million.  The sale included three bottles of Chateau Lafite’s 1869 vintage selling for $233,972.00 each.  This was against a pre sale estimate of around $8,400.00.  All of the top ten lots went to Asian buyers.

Bloomberg reports

All eight of the wine sales Sotheby’s has held in Hong Kong this year achieved 100 percent selling rates, the New York-based company said. As the Asian buyer had acquired three bottles of Lafite 1869, there was a likelihood that at least one of them may be opened and drunk, dealers said.

Wines produced before the phylloxera epidemic devastated France’s vineyards in the 1870s rarely appear on the market, Sutcliffe said.

“There will be a huge curiosity to try a great pre- phylloxera vintage,” Sutcliffe said. “There’s a lot of speculation about why the Chinese like Lafite so much. People say it’s because the name is easy to pronounce in Mandarin. Actually, they like the taste, otherwise they wouldn’t pay such high prices for these wines.”

All 10 of the auction’s most expensive lots fell to Asian private collectors. A single bottle of Lafite 1870 sold for HK$1.3 million, and a 12-bottle case of the chateau’s 1982 vintage for HK$1 million, against low estimates of HK$80,000 and HK$280,000 respectively.

Lafite came top of the first official quality-based classification of Medoc wines in 1855. The chateau was bought by Baron James de Rothschild in 1868, and bottles have since been labeled Lafite-Rothschild.

To read the full Bloomberg article, click HERE.