Sotheby’s opened its autumn sales series in Hong Kong featuring the single-owner sale of Wines from the Cellar of Fux Restaurant as well as Finest and Rarest Wines. The two auctions brought a combined $9.2 million, beating pre-sale expectations. There were nearly 1,500 lots sold and the average lot value was $6,000.
Fux Restaurant founder Peter Strolz, 44, built his wine collection more than 20 years. His Lech, Austria, eatery boasts a wine list of 4,000 varieties with more than 55,000 bottles.
“I am very happy with today’s result and hope that those lucky enough to win some bottles will have lots of fun drinking them,” Strolz said. “Bottoms up from Austria!”
Sotheby’s said Fux Restaurant sales were $3,774,966. Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s 2005 commanded the top price when three bottles sold for $78,424. This surpassed the high-end estimate of $45,000. The 2006 vintage, also a three-bottle lot, sold for $59,603. This beat its top estimate of $38,000.
The Finest and Rarest Wines brought in $5,448,082. A separate auction that featured a 58-bottle set of the Ichiro Hanyu Card Player Series, considered to be among the greats in the whisky world, commanded $454,862.
Highlights included a rare, vertical lot of Screaming Eagle.The 45 bottles of 15 vintages spanning 1997 to 2013, fetched $149,007. Mature Bordeaux performed well. A 12-bottle case each of Pétrus 1990 and 1982 sold for $78,431 and $70,588 respectively. Burgundy was very much in demand as a 12-bottle case of DRC’s La Tâche 2002 vintage fetched $59,607.
“Today’s buyers are clearly ready to go to great lengths to secure the top vintages from the greatest Burgundy producers,” Jamie Ritchie, Sotheby’s worldwide head of wine, said of the September 29-30 event.
Published: October 3, 2017
