Former chief secretary Henry Tang sold off part of his rare wine collection for more than HK$48 million, auction house Christie’s said on Sunday, after a scandal over a wine cellar at his home was partly blamed for his loss last year’s chief executive race.
Tang was set to become the chief executive last year until a series of gaffes and the discovery of an illegal basement containing the cellar at his luxury home made him deeply unpopular.
The two-day auction, which fetched HK$48.24 million, included a wide selection of Burgundys with vintages ranging from 1949 to 2010, Christie’s said, and dozens of wine aficionados attended with others bidding online.
The highlights of the sale were six magnums of Romanie Conti Vintage 1995 which sold for HK$1 million and 12 bottles of Montrachet Vintage 1978 which sold for HK$700,000.
Though there were thousands of bottles on offer, they represented just a small portion of Tang’s collection, the auction house said.
“He’s at a point where there’s enough wine that he can share them with joy,” Christie’s head of wine in China, Simon Tam, said at the sale.