The case for investing in wine, in particular very good Bordeaux Fine Wines, received a huge boost with the seeming ease that Chris De Burgh’s well chosen wines / liquid investments were transformed into cold hard cash, at prices in many cases double the estimates.
Perhaps when NAMA finish selling off the vast tracts of Land and Property that they have (if such a thing can ever be done, even in a fire sale) they might consider putting the money in an asset that has proved its worth through two World Wars, Depressions and as seen here, our current malaise.
Possibly our National Management Treasury Agency should take note too.
For wine geeks amongst us, which means me for starters, here is the detailed description Christies offered of each Magnum of Ch. Mouton Rosthchild.
The reason why it is even more important than usual here is that of course the LABELS are a work of art themselves and highly treasured as such.
So here what many potential buyers would also seem to want to know is not just the height of the wine in the bottle, an indication of decay / evaporation and perhaps condition of the wine, but how clean, undamaged, unmarked the various labels were.
Fascinating if train-spotting like details then (listed in great detail across all the sale wines on the excellent Christies website, just go to the ‘results’ section)
‘Into Neck’ – is by the way the ideal for a bottle of wine, it is shorthand for as full as when it was first bottled.
They were hoping for around £70k + for the Magnums ( €79k) but pulled in £155,250 on this one Lot ! thats
€ 176,717.00 :
Here are a few highlights :
“A VERTICAL COLLECTION OF CHATEAU MOUTON ROTHSCHILD VINTAGES 1945 TO 2005 IN MAGNUM
Château Mouton-Rothschild
Pauillac, 1er cru classé
WWII Victory Label
–Vintage 1945
Philippe Jullian label. Bottle number 572. Good capsule, slightly corroded. Bin-soiled label with small nicks. Level top-shoulder magnum (1)
Jean Cocteau label
–Vintage 1947
Jean Cocteau label. Bottle number 1570. Good capsule. Very slightly damp-affected, slightly creased label. Level just below mid-shouldermagnum (1)
Marc Chagall label
–Vintage 1970
Marc Chagall label. Bottle number 5262. Slightly damaged, corroded capsule. Bin-soiled and glue-striped label. Level top-shouldermagnum (1)
Pablo Picasso label
–Vintage 1973
Pablo Picasso label. Slightly corroded capsule. Good label, slightly creased. Epoxy and tape repair to glass base, no seepage. Level into neckmagnum (1)
Francis Bacon label
–Vintage 1990
Francis Bacon label. Excellent capsule and label. Berry Bros. & Rudd slip label. Level into neckmagnum (1)Giuseppe Penone label
–Vintage 2005
Giuseppe Penone label. Excellent capsule and label. Level into neckmagnum (1)
Above 62 magnums per lot”
You can see the whole list here (its slow to load though)
Wine, Culture, History & Politics from Tomas Clancy 