An unprecedented sale of Bordeaux wines from the great 2000 vintage is being held by Christie's in London next week. As much as 3,000 cases are being auctioned, all owned by one private collector.
The sale is being held in two parts due to its size: 3pm on Monday 15 September at Christie’s, South Kensington, London SW7 and at 10.30am on 18 September 2008 at Christie’s, King Street, London SW1. For those with money to spend it is the second sale where we will see the big names – including multiple lots of the First Growths – go under the hammer. You can view the full auction details here.
With these wines having been stored in-bond in the UK since release there are no issues over provenance and the prices realised are going to be of enormous interest to keen market watchers. In general, the price of wines from this vintage have held steady in the face of the economic woes and any sharp falls will signal that the credit crunch is starting to bite.
On a related matter, Liv-ex is currently expanding its price database to include auction data. Further details will be released in the October Market Report and on this blog at a later date.
Moving back to 2000 Bordeaux, below is a graph comparing the performance of the five First Growths since August 2004 to August 2008. If all First Growths are equal, then some are clearly more equal than others (with apologies to George Orwell).
