In excess of 140 lots of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, worth an estimated $2.1 million, will be sold at auction this September.

Sotheby’s have announced that the sale will take place in in Hong Kong on September the 7th.

The wines are derived from eight grand cru-designated vineyards in the Côte d’Or, with the most desirable being from Vosne-Romanée. These include Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, Echézeaux and Richebourg.

The sale includes:

• 36 six-liter methuselahs

• 18 lots of Romanée Conti

• More than 70 magnums

• Vintages from 1970 to 2003

• 30+ lots of Echézeaux and Grands Echézeaux.

There is increased need for guarantee of provenance due to the Rudy Kurniawan counterfeit scandal, Sotheby’s emphasise that the wines on offer have been stored correctly and that the source is highly legitimate.

The auction house states that: ‘All the wines in this sale were purchased, on release, directly from one of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s importers, and were subsequently sold as a part of a larger collection to the current owner. So the wines have only been owned by two collectors since being distributed by the importer.’

Hong Kong is also set to host a sale of wines direct from the cellars of first-growth Bordeaux estate Haut-Brion.

Source: www.wine-searcher.com

Had Sotheby’s April 3^rd auction been held two days prior, the results would have been dismissed as codswallop. But alas, there were no fools and the Hong Kong auction was truly an indication that the Chinese appetite for the Bordeaux Grand Cru wines is as strong as ever.

The eleventh offering from the ‘A Great American Collector’ series was described by Sotheby’s as featuring “the finest selection of wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, California and Italy”. And they were clearly not exaggerating, with 97.5% sold by lot and 99.8% sold by value! Perhaps the most impressive figures though, were those of the top Bordeaux lots, which surpassed expectations by some way.

Some highlights are detailed below:

Both the variety of wines and vintages purchased and the consistency of sale prices over and above high estimates provide a discerning example of the premiums buyers will pay for stock with outstanding provenance.

Serena Sutcliffe MW said of the sale items: “It is always stimulating to catalogue the impeccably sourced and stored wines amassed by this discerning collector – it is a flawless cellar…”. A strong argument for only buying fine wine from reputable sources and at the youngest possible age.

From a market point of view, these results have to be treated as outliers, but it must be said that it’s encouraging news that there is resurgent demand for First Growth Bordeaux.