At Sotheby’s recent auction in Hong Kong, several records were shattered. Most of the buyers were from Mainland China, which again goes to prove their growing wealth and interest in such auctions. Robert Sleigh, Sotheby’s head of wine in Asia was ofcourse very happy and said: “When you see the prices that were achieved last night. It recalibrates the market to a certain degree.â€
The auction, which was held in the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong’s ballroom brought in a total of 5.4 million Hong Kong dollars (US$8.4 million). Three bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild 1869 fetched HK$1.8 million each. Seven other bottles were sold for HK$1 million each, including vintages of 1869, 1870 and 1899. Many bottles of Lafite and also from the châteaux owned by Domaines Baron de Rothschild were sold for impressive prices.
Sleigh also said, “It’s more difficult to estimate [the sale price] of the super-rare wines. How do you quantify the direct-from-the-chateau provenance? You just can’t get any better than that. It is very difficult to estimate—you don’t know what sort of premium that will carry [with collectors].†All in all this trend seem to be picking up and one can surely see the prices and the number of buyers going up.
Via: blogs.wsj