Our Whisky.Auction September Wine auction results saw some incredible cuvees hit great prices. Auction Manager Jeremy Lee takes us through a few of the stand out lots.
Fabulous First Growths
First Growth Bordeaux provided five out of ten of our top lots in our September wine auction, with a trio of 1989 Haut Brion taking top spot at an impressive hammer price of £4000. Only Château Margaux was unrepresented from the line-up, with half-dozen lots of immaculate provenance from the refined, elegant, 2017 vintage from Mouton Rothschild and Lafite Rothschild vying for supremacy. 2017 Lafite won the day (as it tends to with collectors!) with a hammer of £2800 versus 2017 Mouton Rothschild’s £1700, despite little to separate them in terms of critical acclaim. In years to come the Moutons in particular may look like ‘relative’ bargains versus likely hammer prices of single bottles listed down the track.
Whisky.Auction September First Growth Bordeaux Wine sale results
Single bottle lots of two other Pauillac legends, 21 years apart, provided other top Claret highlights: the legend that is the titanic, opulent Parker 100 pointer, 1982 Latour hit £1200, while 2009 Lafite Rothschild (at this stage a mere ‘99+’) hit £525, offering lucky collectors (or their children) the possibility to enjoy the ‘classic elegance, purity and delineated style of Lafite’ well into the 2060s and beyond.
Interestingly though, California provided a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon 100-point hit as our top-performing single bottle lot, with 1997 Screaming Eagle hitting £3400, an increase of £400 since we last saw it in June. With only 6000 bottles produced, this is only going to get rarer.
French Whites
White wine highlights also featured a 2009 Haut Brion Blanc, which hit £625. The kind of Bordeaux curio that collectors tend to drink rather than offer to market, it is infinitely more scarce than its red stablemate, being harvested from a meagre 2.7 hectares of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc.
1988 Montrachet Grand Cru Joseph Drouhin, Marquis de Laguiche performed well hitting £500, providing the winning bidder with the opportunity to taste a mature example from the world’s most celebrated Chardonnay vineyard, but conversely a duo of 2016 Bourgogne Blanc Coche-Dury, from the most humble of all Burgundy white wine appellations eclipsed it at £625, proving the collectability of legendary vignerons regardless of technical quality level.
Whisky.Auction September French White Wine sale results
Champagne
Moet & Chandon MCIII 001.14 made another appearance for us, and was our worthy Champagne highlight, selling for £410. What fizz fan wouldn’t want to taste the ‘Ultra-Prestige Cuvée’ , a multi-vintage blend from Champagne’s No.1? A wide range of vintages were available from many of the prestigious Champagne Houses so there was plenty to choose from for fans of Dom Perignon, Louis Roederer, Perrier Jouet or Bollinger.
Whisky.Auction September Vintage Champagne sale results
Barolo Bargains?
Amongst the bargains last night were a host of mature Barolos (Baroli?), some multiple bottle lots providing excellent current and mid-term drinking from Pio Cesare as well as six venerable single bottle lots of vintages (regular & riserva) from the highly-regarded Borgogno, dating back to 1947.
