Collector Pierre Chen is selling US$50 million worth of wine, starting with a Hong Kong auction – Taiwanese billionaire on the drink’s ‘magic’

Sotheby’s is selling 25,000 bottles from the cellar of Pierre Chen, one of Taiwan’s richest businessmen, in an auction series starting and ending in Hong Kong

The sale of rare Bordeaux and burgundy wines is expected to fetch a record US$50 million. The all-round aesthete talks about why the drink is an art form

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Taiwanese billionaire Pierre Chen, part of whose wine collection will be sold by Sotheby’s in a series of auctions, says the power of wine lies in the way it enables us to relive memories. Photo: Kristy Sparow

Published: 6:15pm, 28 Sep 2023

Pierre Chen Tai-min, founder of electronic components behemoth Yageo Corporation, epicurean, aesthete and one of Taiwan’s wealthiest businessmen, is selling part of his wine collection.

Five auctions of “extraordinarily rare bottles and mythical vintages”, in Hong Kong, Paris, Burgundy, New York and London – billed “An Epicurean’s Atlas” – will start in November.

They will feature 25,000 bottles from Chen’s personal cellar, which is said to hold some of the world’s most fabled wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and France’s Rhone Valley.

“This is a truly Olympian wine cellar of global significance,” says Serena Sutcliffe, master of wine and honorary chairman of Sotheby’s wine division.

Chen’s wine collection is called “truly Olympian” and “of global significance” by Serena Sutcliffe, the honorary chairman of Sotheby’s Wine division. Photo: Kristy Sparow

Chen is known first and foremost as one of the world’s leading collectors of art, having begun acquiring his collection in 1976 when, as a student, he saved enough money to buy, for NT$25,000, a sculpture by Hong Kong-based artist Cheung Yee.

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