Wine, Whisky & Port Auction

18th November 2023

I probably say this every year, but I really do enjoy the Wine Sale. It is a sale that comes with few sale day nerves, as the positivity of the buyers is always high and the Christmas spirit is starting to ebb its way into the auction house. Clients who we only see once a year are welcomed back as old friends and their excitement over leaving at the end of the day with a boot full of cases is palpable.

The sale always starts with our miscellaneous section, this time bolstered with an offering of good quality cigars. The section was dominated by the successful sale of one particularly uncommon liqueur; green and yellow Chartreuse. Chartreuse is a wonderful drink that unlike many who boast it, truly grows better with age whilst in the bottle. It is traditionally a Carthusian Monk distilled alcohol that had a huge resurgence of popularity in the 2000s creating a shortage; this factored with the fact that vintage bottles will be better than younger ones, has created a brilliantly competitive market. We had five bottles within the section and saw the three best single bottle section results within these lots, with £480 for lot 6 a green 1970s bottle, £520 for lot 35 a 1970s yellow example and a cracking £1,250 for lot 7 an early 20^th century example.

The miscellaneous lots were followed by the cigars, cognac and brandy section. The best results within the cigars were seen from the classic name of Romeo y Julieta, with two lots of opened and part used boxes that made £260 and £280. The best single bottle within the brandy offerings was lot 56 a bottle of Baron de Lustrac 1947 armagnac that made £290.

The port came as part of a larger section than normal and had a 100% successful sale rate. The best single bottle prices came from lot 104 a bottle of Hibernia 1847, with Christies Label and a beautiful antique hand-blown bottle with a twisted neck, that sold for £120, Lot 97 a bottle of Dow's 1947 vintage port that made £200 and lot 103 a rare bottle of Roriz 1921 vintage port that made £280.

We then plunged into the whisky section, that proved as popular as ever.  I remember some years ago amidst the continued rise of the whisky market, pundits started to write articles predicting the “bubble to burst”, yet this has proved wonderfully untrue!  The 70-lot section had much to talk about, but trying to water down the pile we saw £360 for lot 114 a 24yr old Glen Moray, £400 for lot 116 an 8yr old Rosebank, £580 for lot 135 a 1967 Highland Park and £600 for lot 147 a rare bottle of Clynelish 12 year old single malt whisky, The Spirit of Free Embo.  We also had a fantastic collection of lots bottled and boxed by William Cadenhead seen from lot 117 to 122 that brought £360 for an Inverleven 21 year old single malt, £480 for a Glentaucher 20 year old pure malt, £520 for an Ardmore 22 year old single malt, £560 for a Speyburn-Glenlivet 16 year old pure malt, £560 for a Ben Nevis 22 year old pure malt and £750 for a Convalmore-Glenlivet 18 year old pure malt.

Next came the first of the Wines with the New World section and some amazing offerings, mostly from one single owner collection. We gained £500 from lot 197 5 bottles "The Malcolm" 1996 Barossa shiraz, from the Magpie Estate, and proving age isn’t everything we gained £320 for 2 bottles of Shafer 2014, from Napa Valley Stags Leap District. But the best single bottle results came from a string of lots 180 - 190 seeing between £240 and £270 per bottle for Penfolds Bin 95 dating from 1982 through to 1994.

The Champagne popped off next with a lot of the old favourites emerging from the crowd, as we saw £220 each for lots 226 and 227 with two bottles of Moet et Chandon vintage 1980 and 1976. This was followed by lot 231 another Moet et Chandon dated to 1982 that pipped the last two making £260, lot 246 a 1981 vintage boxed bottle of Bollinger that made £270 and a huge Nebuchadnezzer of Veuve Clicquot champagne, modelled in the catalogue by my little boy for scale, that made £850. But the best lot of the section and second-best single bottle of the sale was seen with lot 220, a bottle of 1953 vintage Krug champagne that rocketed past the estimate to make £1,600.

Before moving onto the first of the French wine and Bordeaux section, a mention should go to the best of the European offerings in lot 270 and a great pair of bottles of 2016 Sassicaia that made a healthy £400. Now marching into the last third of the sale we began the Bordeaux section, within the white bottles 6 1993 Chateau Yquem collectively reach £1010. Withing the reds we gained £210 for lot 328 a 1970 Grand Vin de Chateau Latour, £300 for lot 384 a 1996 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, £360 for lot 409 a 1995 Balthazar Chateau Vieux Fortin and £5,350 for lot 382 a case of 1990 Chateau Lafite Rothschild. But the best single bottle result from the section (and sale) came from lot 393 a magnum of Petrus 1997, pomerol, that made the upper end of our estimate at £1,850.

The last 80 lots of the sale were made up of our Burgundy & Rhone section that finished us strongly without a single unsold. We had three lots of 1998 Chateau Beaucastel single boxed bottles that made £230 each, and lot 484 2 bottles of Chambolle-Musigny, 2009, Domaine G. Roumier that made £360. The sale was well populated with Hermitage seeing £460 for lot 467 two bottles by Paul Jaboulet Aine from 1990, £280 for lot 476 a single bottle from the same producer and same vintage, £380 for lot 470 another single bottle of 1983 Hermitage by Jean-Louis Chave, and £1,750 for lot 474 6 bottles Hermitage 1995, Domaine Jean-Louis Chave.

The sale was a roaring success with a selling rate of 99% throughout the 510 lots. Sellers and buyers were left smiling (the tight-rope challenge for every auctioneer) and although I finished the day exhausted after a long stint on the rostrum, the fruition of months of work had been completed without hitch. Believe it or not we have already started to take in lots for next years Wine Sale, so if you have any bottles you want valuing for sale, please do not hesitate to get in touch.