The most valuable wine auction lot ever offered – the Romanée-Conti Superlot – comes up at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on October 4. Sotheby’s one day sale features a wealth of top notch Burgundies, led by an historic Henri Jayer collection and the Romanée-Conti Superlot. The auction gets underway with a selection of Henri Jayer magnums from the cellar of James H. Clark, founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. The collection of 66 magnums in 19 lots is estimated at US$750,000-1.2 million. Of the 66 magnums 19 are the extremely rare Vosne-Romanée Cros Parantoux, 1990. Additional lots from Mr. Clark will be available at a Sotheby’s single owner sale in New York next November 15.
The 114 bottle Romanée-Conti Superlot of 19 consecutive vintages (six bottles per vintage of 1992-2010) is estimated at US$1.5-2.5 million, making it the most valuable wine lot ever offered. Romanée-Conti is regarded as one of the greatest wines in the world, with a miniscule average annual production of 5,500 bottles. Given their small productions, Burgundies have been in ever-growing demand globally. The Burgundy lots make up over 40% of the total number of 778 lots available in this sale. The auction is expected to bring in US$4.5-6.7 million.
UP to now the most valuable wine lot ever sold at auction was a single case lot of 50 cases of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, 1982 which made US$1,051,600 at Sotheby’s, New York in 2006: UPDATE Sotheby’s today broke the world auction record for the most expensive wine lot when it sold the Romanée-Conti Superlot for HK$12,556,250 / US$1,609,776. The price achieved per bottle of the 114-bottle Superlot was HK$110,143 / US$14,121, which equals HK$13,768 / US$1,700 per glass for 912 glasses.