A 12-bottle lot of Chateau Palmer 1961 sold for $53,775 at a Hart Davis Hart Wine Co. auction in Chicago this month while the same quantity of Chateau Haut Brion 1959 fetched $47,800, both beating pre-sale estimates in a sign that demand for historic Bordeaux is helping lead a broader recovery in the market for top vintages from the region.
The sale also included six magnums of Chateau Lafleur 1982 for $59,750, the highest price at the two-day auction that generated $6.51 million with all lots sold, Hart Davis Hart said in an e-mailed statement. Six bottles of Chateau Petrus 1961 from Pomerol sold for $57,360. All prices include a 19.5 percent buyer’s premium.
In addition to private collections, the auction “featured wines direct from the cellars of top chateaux including Haut Bailly, Leoville Las Cases, Mouton Rothschild, Montrose and Pichon Longueville Lalande,” Hart said in the statement.
The sale, which ended Nov. 5, came as the fine wine market is rallying from a 40 percent drop in prices of many top Bordeaux wines since 2011. The London-based Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 Index of top Bordeaux has risen 26 percent this year, with gains in three consecutive quarters. The broader Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 Index gained 22 percent to the end of October.
Twelve bottles of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1959 sold for $38,240 while 12 bottles of Chateau Margaux 1961 brought $22,705, according to Hart. Three bottles of Petrus 1961 attracted a winning bid of $31,070.
The sale included 502 lots of first-growth red Bordeaux spanning 54 vintages, which combined sold for $2.6 million, and took Hart’s live auction sales total to more than $38 million so far this year, according to the statement.
News by Bloomberg, edited by Hospitality Ireland
