NEWS
THIS VIETNAMESE BUSINESSMAN OWNS WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE WHISKY COLLECTION
By Siulan Law Mathews DipWSET
25-11-2019
The world’s most valuable whisky collection is not owned by western collector, it’s owned by a Vietnamese aficionado based in Ho Chi Minh City, the Guinness World Records has confirmed.
The collection belongs to whisky collector Viet Nguyen Dinh Tuan. It has been valued by leading rare whisky valuation experts at Rare Whisky 101 at a “hammer price” of £10.77milliom (USD13.9m).
The collection comprises 535 of the world’s rarest, oldest and finest bottles of Scotch and Japanese whisky. Highlights include the iconic 1926 Macallan 60YO, a bottle of which has recently broke world record with a hammer price of £1.2million.
Dubbed the Holy Grail of fine and rare whiskies, only 40 bottles of 1926 Macallan 60YO were ever released, and Mr Viet owns three of them.
Mr Viet’s collection also holds one of only 12 bottles of the oldest Bowmore ever released, which also happens to be both the most expensive Bowmore and the most expensive Islay malt in the world, with a similar bottle fetching £300,000 hammer price at auction recently.
The collection also includes one of only 24 bottles of the 1919 vintage Springbank in Campbeltown. A similar bottle was sold recently for £220,000 at hammer making it the world’s most expensive bottle of Springbank.
Mr Viet is a businessman, he has been collecting rare and fine whiskies for more than 20 years. His collection of more than 500 bottles is locked securely in a bespoke whisky lounge at home.
“For me, whisky collecting has been my life’s passion. Every spare moment I get, I’m searching auction sites and trading websites to find famous and rare whiskies from around the world. Clearly this requires a lot of patience and no shortage of tenacity, but I’m proud of my efforts,” he said.
“As for my collection, I have no intention of selling any of it. Not one bottle. In fact, I’ll continue to hunt for more old and rare bottles and add to and enrich it,” he added.
Rare Whisky 101 arrived at the collection’s valuation by determining each bottle’s expected open market price.
The valuation was subsequently submitted to Guinness World Records, who confirmed the feat by certification this month.
Andy Simpson, co-founder of Rare Whisky 101 said: “We were somewhat gobsmacked, not to mention a little envious, when we realised the breadth and depth of Mr Viet’s collection.”
“From a pure value perspective, we’re confident this collection is head and shoulders above the rest. Mr Viet is, what we believe to be, one of possibly three collectors in the world to own all three variants of the legendary Macallan 1926 bottling (the Fine & Rare label, the Peter Blake label and the Valerio Adami label), which recently broke the world record. That said, it may well be the case that Mr Viet is the only collector in the world to have three bottles.”
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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