WineAuction

Art and dinosaurs may not be moving at auction, but in a tough market, you can count on people drinking. Sotheby's nearly sold out its entire auction in Hong Kong Saturday, raking in HK$61.5 million (US$7.9 million) from 1,010 lots offered. Only five lots failed to find a home at the auction – and they were later sold privately. The result obliterated the presale estimate of HK$47.8 million.

Much of the action came because prices were relatively low, but there was plenty of room for upward movement. A 6-liter bottle of Chateau Petrus 1982 sold for HK$726,000 (US$94,000), setting a record. The buyer opted to remain anonymous.

A mere 1 percent of the lots went to buyers who were not Asian. Mainland Chinese were responsible for most of the buying, followed by bidders from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

Hong Kong has carved out a place for itself at the top of the international wine auction market and is now providing competition to New York and London. Sotheby's and Christie's have been holding auctions in Hong Kong since February 2008, when the government nixed duties on wine.

The wine auction kicked off a week of gavel-pounding for Sotheby's, preceding a five-day auction of art and gems consisting of 2,300 lots. The estimate for the festivities is HK$780 million.

Wine futures, also referred to as "en primeur", is the term that describes an investment made in wine before it is bottled. Usually, the investment is in a "pre-arrival", which is the first release of certain vintages. Wine futures are similar to an investment made in the futures market. Simply put, it is a bet that the expected future price will increase. Some wine futures, usually those that are highly sought-after premium wines, enter the secondary market. Upon investing in a wine future, the initial release price is usually at its lowest point. An investor can potentially reap a sizeable profit if the investment was made in a wine future that turns out to be an excellent vintage with tremendous demand. Of course, there's an element of risk to investing in wines. An investment in a wine future can turn out to be poor if there's little demand for the wine when it enters the retail market. Be sure to compare prices and only deal with an established and reputable retailer or importer before making an investment.

Vinfolio Marketplace is set to go live on July 1, 2009, solving a problem with which many wine collectors struggle. This online platform was designed to make it easier for collectors to put their bottles up for sale, creating a more fluid marketplace for this, um, fluid. Founder Aaron DeMello believes it could become the world's primary spot market for wine.

Currently, the wine sales platform has a virtual inventory – thanks to participants – of nearly 12 million bottles, with a value of approximately $2 billion. Most participants are located in North America. The market inventory will be supplied by more than 53,000 private wine cellars.

DeMello's goal is to create a place where buyers and sellers can come together easily to complete their transactions. The ancillary effect, of course, would be the real-time valuation of different wines, as you see in securities and commodities markets.

One client is putting up a third of the take at the Christie's wine auction this weekend. A total of 613 lots are available, with one party accounting for than 200 of them. This seller is described only as a "wealthy New York family" (duh). For collectors, according to the auction house's spin, this is a great time to buy. Prices are falling, which means that there are plenty of bargains out there.

Apparently, there's some wisdom to this perspective. At the Sotheby's auction last weekend, bidders dropped more than $2.9 million on vino, thrashing a pre-auction estimate of only $1.8 million to $2.6 million. New buyers are coming into the market. At the Sotheby's auction, more than 20 percent of the bidders were new. Two weeks before that, Hart Davis Hart, of Chicago, moved nearly $2.7 million of liquid bliss, beating its presale mark of $2.4 million.

In a Reuters interview, wine consultant Judy Beardsall likens wine collecting and investing to gardening, "At a time like this, it's a chance to turn over the soil in the garden, put down some stock for the next generation."

But, if you aren't interested in waiting, all the wines put up for auction are fit for consumption ... for a price.