Photo by Luismi Sánchez on Unsplash
The most valuable wine collection in the world – worth an estimated £41m – is going under the hammer at a forthcoming series of auctions across the globe.
The collection, which belongs to tech billionaire Pierre Chen contains a total of 25,000 bottles of wine and is due to be auctioned in five dedicated auctions by Sotheby’s over the next twelve months.
The auctions will start and end in Hong Kong, and include Paris, Beaune (an exclusive wine-making region in France) and New York.
The wine collection, which is titled The Epicurean’s Atlas, includes red burgundies which account for the most valuable lots, with two 1985 methuselahs (six-litre bottles) from the La Tache vineyard valued at up to £155,000 each.
A rare bottle of 1982 Chateau Petrus, a Bordeaux red, is estimated to fetch around £53,000, while white burgundies and vintage Dom Perignon and Krug champagnes are also set for sale as part of the collection.
Other wines, including a six-litre bottle of Romaneé-Conti La Tâche 1985 is estimated to be sold for between £98,500-£155,000, and Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin 1990 wine could fetch up to £4,900 per bottle.
The first sale is to be held next month and plans to offer prospective wine buyers a broader sense of the scope and quality of the collection up for sale. The following auctions will concentrate on specific regions or types of wines.
Mr Chen said of his collection: “To me, wine is the 9th art, It is the only art form one can consume, using senses that other art forms don’t typically involve, such as one’s taste and smell, and it requires creativity on the part of the owner.”
Sotheby’s head of wines and spirits, Nick Pegna, added: “This is a cellar in which every bottle of wine has a story… it’s the ultimate collection.”
Mr Chen is a Taiwanese businessman and the founder and chairman of Yageo, an electronics component maker whose parts are found in everything from mobile phones to tablet PCs and cars. He has an estimated net worth of $5.4bn, according to Forbes. The wines in the forthcoming auctions are thought to represent a fraction of his collection, which Chen has amassed over a 40-year period.
