Hong Kong seller confident of getting HK$4.8 million for rare Bordeaux wine lot
Corruption crackdown on the mainland will not deter serious collectors who want to acquire older wines, says dealer selling 150 bottles
The economic slowdown on the mainland and Beijing's anti-corruption campaign have not stopped a Hong Kong wine dealer from putting 150 bottles of Chateau Mouton Rothschild worth HK$4.8 million up for sale.
The collection offered by L'Imperatrice in a private sale includes sought-after vertical collections - consecutive vintages of the same wine - of three bottle sizes: 750ml regular bottles, 1.5-litre magnums and 3-litre double magnums.
Director Julien Froger expects it to be "the most expensive Mouton lot in Asia".
There are 68 regular bottles from 1945 to 2011, 44 magnums from 1968 to 2010, and 35 double magnums from 1978 to 2011. On top of that, there's a 2000 Nebuchadnezzar (15 litres), a 1924 bottle, and a tailor-made cabinet. The wines were purchased from a French collector last year.
President Xi Jinping's crackdown on official extravagance has been cited as a factor in falling sales of luxury goods in Hong Kong. But Froger said serious collectors were unfazed by the campaign and many were particularly keen to acquire very rare vintages dated before 2000. He said vertical collections of Bordeaux First Growths "usually sold very fast … maybe in a few weeks".
However, he said many local companies selling mid-range Bordeaux wines were struggling as rarer Burgundy wines became more popular.
Collectors love verticals of Mouton, as the labels are designed by a different artist every year. These have included Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, who received six cases of Mouton wines in exchange.
