Wine collection with grand cru Burgundies and Bordeaux breaks record and fetches US$29.8 million at Sotheby’s
Last weekend’s Sotheby’s Tran-scend-ent Wines auction in Hong Kong exceeded all expectations when a 17,000-bottle collection spanning nearly five decades sold for almost US$4 million more than its estimated sale price.
Bloomberg reports that the collection sold for US$29.8 million, much higher than the anticipated US$26 million price.
The sale eclipsed the previous record for the highest private wine collection sold at auction, almost US$22 million which billionaire Bill Koch’s 20,000-bottle collection yielded in New York in 2016.
This joins other high-stakes wine auctions, where single cases have sold for up to US$363,000.
This rare collection included “grand cru” – or first-class – Burgundies and Bordeaux from an anonymous owner. According to Bloomberg, Sotheby’s has yet to disclose the seller, though he was described as a “fifth-generation property developer”.
The past year has seen several record-shattering liquor sales, including a single bottle of 60-year-old Macallan that sold for US$1.1 million at auction. The sale set the record for the most expensive bottle of whisky ever sold, only to be surpassed a month later by another bottle of Macallan, which sold for US$1.5 million.
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This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
- Collection eclipses old mark by almost US$8 million at Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong