NEWS
HONG KONG: A PRIVATE DRC & BURGUNDY COLLECTION SOLD FOR HKD50M IN SOTHEBY’S AUCTION
By Susan Lewsis
12-8-2024
Source: Sotheby's
A collection described as “one of the greatest private collections of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) and Burgundy in the world” has achieved sales of HKD49.75 million (USD6.64m) in an auction hosted by Sotheby’s Hong Kong.
There were 400 lots in total, making it the largest online auction ever staged by Sotheby’s in Asia, among them 218 featured wines from DRC.
Dubbed “The Masterpiece Collection: A Grand European Cellar”, the collection had a pre-auction estimate of HKD42.5m.
Owned by an anonymous Swiss private collector, the auction results beat estimate by more than 17 percent, having generated HKD49.75m in sales.
The DRC vintages went all the way back to the 1960s, including many large formats, covering Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, Richebourg, Romanée-St-Vivant, Grands Échezeaux and Échezeaux.
There were also lots from Rousseau, de Vogüé, Leflaive, Drouhin and Faiveley, plus extensive cuvées from the Hospices de Beaune.
The Swiss collector purchased most of them on release, sourced directly from the wineries’ agents in Switzerland and London. Some were purchased at Sotheby’s auctions in the 1990s and 2000s.
Approximately 80 percent of the lots were sold, many of them exceeded estimates by wide margins.
The lot with the highest estimate, featuring six magnums of Romanée-Conti 1994, did not sell, according to the auction results.
However, a methuselah of Romanée-Conti 1983, beat estimate by fetching HKD1.063m.
Meanwhile, six bottles of Romanée-Conti 1991 sold for HKD812,500 and two jeroboams of La Tâche 1979 achieved the same price.
A jeroboam of Romanée-Conti 2000 fetched HKD750,000, while six bottles of Romanée-Conti 1989 attracted a winning bid of HKD687,500.
George Lacey, head of Sotheby’s wine in Asia, said: “It is incredibly rare that we come across a collection of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti which is this extensive.”
“This is a magnificent cellar, full of masterpieces, one that has been assembled with the most extraordinary care and dedication over many years, by a renowned European connoisseur with close links to the Domaine and their agents.”
“Even rarer still is that it has been so meticulously sourced and stored, with truly unimpeachable provenance. Particularly unusual was the large quantity of mature large-formats, with such stellar histories, having lain unmoved since release rather than traded around the world.”
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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