vintage wine

Spectrum Wines Spans The Pacific With Simultaneous Auction On Two Different Days

There's no denying that the rare wine market is huge in Hong Kong. Spectrum Wine Auctions is set to capitalize on that with an auction this summer that puts them in two places at once. The wine auction specialists will offer 575 lots in its next fine and rare wine live auction simultaneously on Friday, June 25 at Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California, at 6 p.m. PDT, and on Saturday, June 26 at the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon, Hong Kong, at 9 a.m. HKT. Bidders will have the opportunity to bid live, via fax and telephone, and via the internet in real time at www.spectrumwine.com. Small bites and various wines will be offered throughout the session and attendance is open to the public and is free of charge.

The June auction features abundance of 100-point Parker wines and has an estimate of $3.5 million. Highlights include 12 bottles of 1978 Romanée Conti estimated at $150,000. Also up for bid will be more highlights from the collection of Aubrey McClendon including 1982 and 1986 Château Mouton Rothschild, 1996 and 2003 Château Lafite Rothschild, and 1997 and 2001 Harlan, other fine properties for sale include Château Haut Brion from 1945-2006, Château Latour spanning 1928-2006, a full cadre of Domaine de la Romanée Conti from 1953-2005, and Screaming Eagle from 1995-2007. A Nebuchadnezzar (15L) of 2005 Château d'Yquem in original presentation wood case, numbered #28 out of 100 is estimated at $17,500.

Tags: chateau dyquem, hong kong, romanee-conti, vintage wine

The World's Oldest Wine At Graycliff Resort

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Wine

What happens to the world's oldest wines? Many bottles sit in private collections, some remain in the custody of the originating winery (like the world's oldest champagne which was recently opened) and some is in restaurant cellars. At the Graycliff Restaurant at the Graycliff Hotel in the Bahamas one of the world's oldest wines is in residence. The restaurant, which serves Bahamian fusion food, has a comprehensive wine cellar that includes the 1727 Rudesheimer Apostelwein from Bremer Ratsfeller in the "Rheinghau" region of Germany which is considered to be the oldest drinkable wine. The bottle and label date from the 1950s when the wine was drawn off from the cask which remains in the city of Bremen.

Should you prefer something a bit younger, there's always the 1865 Château Lafite and of course, a whole host of modern vintages in a wide range of prices. The wine cellar has over 275,000 bottles with over 4000 selections from 15 countries. Graycliff also has a Cognacteque, a unique collection of Cognacs, Armagnacs and Ports which can be paired with one of the cigars from Graycliff's humidor. An average dinner for two costs $150 not including wine.

Source

Tags: bahamas, graycliff hotel, GraycliffHotel, vintage wine, VintageWine

Is Vintage Becoming Meaningless?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

The London Sunday Times has a provocative article on vintage wine. Noted wine critic Hugh Johnson has said that due to advanced agricultural techniques, the concept of vintage is becoming obsolete. Johnson says that wine growers have become so adept at handling bad weather and other crop problems that just about every year is a good year. Johnson's words come in the pages of his 2008 edition of the Pocket Wine Book.

Johnson says that the concern over vintage is driving the high end of the market unnecessarily and that the "non-prestigious" years are better than they have ever been. Is Johnson correct or is he suffering from wine fatigue? In the article he is quoted as saying that he sometimes misses the days when he could write off an unfortunate vintage and that he feels that most wines are now remarkably similar. While Johnson's theory could probably handily proven in a blind tasting it seems unlikely to me that the fretting over vintages is going anywhere anytime soon. It is far too entrenched in the romance of wine culture to be easily discarded even if the intrinsic value of it has faded.

Source

Tags: bordeaux, expire-images:2008-11-11, hugh johnson, vintage wine, wine

The Great Antique Lafite Collection

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

The Antique Wine Company, the company that offered a lot of every vintage of every vintage of Chateau d'Yquem since 1860 is at it again. This time they are offering a 48-bottle vertical collection of Chateau Lafite Rothschild. Decanter reports that the collection, which is being offered for sale, is being rigorously tested for authenticity. The collection spans four centuries of Chateau Lafite and includes a bottle of 1787, the same vintage as the infamous Jefferson wines which are currently being challenged for their authenticity.

The wine is being examined using a combination of nuclear isotope analysis and gamma radiation and proton beam tests to confirm the age of each glass bottle, The wine itself is being extracted via a hypodermic needle through the cork and will also undergo molecular and chemical analysis. The bottles were gathered over the course of two years from restaurants, hotels and private cellars including some from the cellar of a member of the Rothschild family. The collection is expected to bring between $1 and $3 million.

Source

Tags: french wine, great antique wine company, GreatAntiqueWineCompany, lafite rothschild, vintage wine, wine

Tips For Bidding At Wine Auctions

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Auctions

Just in time for Edward Roberts International's latest fine wine auction March 4, the Chicago Tribune covers what to do at a wine auction. As they point out, certain wines are always demand because of the region, the vintage or the amount that remains. Wine auctions are a chance for collectors to get their hands on that rare bottle they have been looking for. Both Edward Roberts International and Hart-Davis-Hart wine says that the online bidding has become an increasingly large part of their auction business. The one negative to online bidding is that you don't get to sample at the pre-auction tasting. The Tribune article recommends checking the fill level of the wine you want to bid on because an unusually low level of liquid in the bottleneck could indicate oxidation. And of course the same rules that apply for any auction work here. Do your research first, know what you want to bid on and how much you are willing to pay.

Source

Tags: alcohol, food and drink, rare wines, vintage wine, wine auctions, WineAuctions