Sotheby's wine expert Serena Sutcliffe has scoured the world relentlessly in search of the perfect drop

IT IS ALMOST 11 years since Serena Sutcliffe accepted the job of senior director and head of the international wine department at auction house Sotheby's. She began her career as a translator in France before moving to London in the early 1970s to join the wine trade, becoming the second woman ever to be admitted to the Institute of Masters of Wine, which remains male-dominated. By the time the headhunters appeared with the Sotheby's offer, Ms Sutcliffe and her husband, David Peppercorn, also a Master of Wine, had established reputations, a flourishing consultancy business and several published books. 'I took nine months to say yes [to Sotheby's]. Everyone says 'oh yes, a gestation period'. At the time my husband and I had our own firm. You do exactly what you like, when you like. It is difficult giving up independence to go back to a large company, so that explains the hesitation,' she says. In the end, Ms Sutcliffe succumbed to the lure of an international firm that is also closely involved in visual arts, another of her passions. Sotheby's today has a commanding lead in the world of wine, from a less than 20 per cent market share when Ms Sutcliffe first joined. It has racked up the biggest sales figures so far this year with only two auctions left to go. 'There has never been such a turnaround in the department,' Ms Sutcliffe says. 'It is very difficult to build up from a small base, and it was 1991-92 [when I joined]. It was recession, deep recession.' She stuck to a quality approach, focusing on the top end of the market. Eschewing 'turnover for turnover's sake', she and her team of around 20 based in London and New York choose to deal with great collections of wine. That means turning away some stock and aiming for a high sale rate. 'I could probably increase what I sell by a third every year if I took everything [that was offered]. It either doesn't satisfy us on storage or on provenance or authenticity. Great paintings don't just come out of the ether and nor do great wines,' she says. 'There is no point having vast sales and only selling 25 or 30 per cent. I am very proud of the fact that the unsold rate at a lot of our sales is in single-digit figures.' Sotheby's focuses its wine auctions in London and New York, where the top international bidders gather. At auction, the team receives thousands of faxed bids from hundreds of potential buyers in various locations and also accepts phone bids. The department has the unique advantage of eight dedicated wine auctioneers, with Ms Sutcliffe holding the hammer only at charity events. 'In our auctions, I think probably my real use is on the telephone with the top bidders. Some of them demand it, they like talking to me if they are making last-minute decisions,' she says. 'It is a very human thing, the auction market.' One recent coup was the world record price fetched in October for a bottle of sherry from the Massandra Collection, which dates back to the 1840s. Sold by permission of the President of Ukraine, the bottle went to an Asian collector for GBP31,900 (about HK$352,000) from a pre-sale estimate of GBP17,000 to GBP25,000. 'It was a hard fight,' says Ms Sutcliffe. 'A lot of people wanted that bottle and an Asian won. It was an unusual historic wine from the Tzar's cellar in the Crimea. Normally that kind of thing would probably be bought by an American buying a bit of history, whereas an Asian buyer might be more interested in a great Bordeaux or burgundy name. Clearly the historical side appealed in this case.' Hong Kong remains a key market for the wine industry, according to Ms Sutcliffe. Many collectors are based here and are active buyers, although they may choose to store their wine at homes elsewhere. In general, a wider and younger circle of people are becoming interested in wine and their tastes have diversified. Hong Kongers will also take the trouble these days to travel to vineyards and see where the wines originate. Going to concerts and the opera are interests that help Ms Sutcliffe take her mind off her work. She spends 50 per cent of her time travelling in a job that demands stamina, a strong constitution and the stomach for endless social events as well as the managerial skills to run a department. Every day, she writes something about wine, whether for a catalogue, magazine or the Sotheby's Web site. She dabbles with the idea of writing poetry when she has more time on her hands, but will not be succumbing to the advances of an American literary agent who has his heart set on her life story. 'I have met a lot of people in my life and have done a lot of things but I will never betray a confidence,' she insists. 'Maybe one of the reasons I have had a bit of success in the auction world is that there's a lot of people who like discretion and they get that with me.' Ms Sutcliffe sees her 30 years in the wine business as another great excuse for a celebration. 'It is tremendous for me when great wines that have been in the collection of one person [are] distributed amongst a worldwide audience,' she says. 'It gives me great pleasure. After all, the real value of wine is that moment when you pull the cork.' Graphic: hour02gwz