Futures, magnums and historical collections: what is traded at wine auctions

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Christie's wine auction. Together with my acquaintance, a fan of rare and very expensive wines, we decided to see what lots were being offered and how much they were selling for. If my friend was not averse to buying a couple or three bottles for his home cellar, my role was to protect him from buying the hyped mediocrity for a lot of money and to help him choose something really worthwhile. I also had the pleasure of walking out in a new evening dress.

Any auction is a mixture of excitement and the desire to spend money buying something very rare, on the one hand, and the ability to create excitement and present the lot correctly, on the other. The situation is similar with wine, and often participants are willing to spend an obscene amount for an impression, an interesting story of the winemaker, a limited edition or the venerable age of the vines from which the grapes were harvested;

The history of wine auctions goes back as far back as the 15th century, when the Hospices de Beaune in Burgundy sold wine from vineyards it had received as a gift, with the proceeds going to charity. In 1859, the Hospices de Beaune began holding an annual wine auction, one of the most famous in the world.

The first public wine auction outside of France took place in 1673 at Garraway's Coffee House in London - where buyers and sellers traditionally transacted business. And in the 18th century, the first auction houses began to form in London. One of the most famous is Christie's, founded by James Christie in 1766. At the time, wine was not so much an object of hedonism as a reliable asset: it was sold and bought by aristocrats, collectors and merchants to close debts or provide income for the family.

Today, serious bidding at wine auctions also takes place in New York, Hong Kong, Geneva, Zurich, and in recent years in Singapore and Dubai. And a significant part of them went online: now you can bid sitting at home on the sofa. But this, of course, does not replace the special charm of the atmosphere of real halls.

Anyone who has ever had any interest in wine auctions may have a few names on their lips: 

- Christie's Wine and Spirits Department is one of the oldest and most respected in the market.

- Sotheby's Wine is a direct competitor of Christie's. It holds impressive auctions in New York, Hong Kong and London.

- Zachys from the United States is known for his active work with collectors in the States and Asia.

- Acker Merrall & Condit, or simply Acker - another American company, often the first to gain access to iconic Burgundy lots.

- Baghera Wines -a relatively young but high-profile Geneva auction house that relies on exclusives and record-breaking collections.

Each of these houses has its own "thing". Christie's and Sotheby's emphasize on proven vintages with impeccable storage history. Zachys is loved for its ability to sell wine faster and a slightly more democratic lot selection policy. Baghera Wines is famous for its high-profile "star" sales, where they often sell entire cellars of famous collectors or legendary winemakers.

There are rare bottles of Bordeaux (Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Latour, Château Margaux), exquisite Burgundies like Domaine de la Romanée-Conti or Domaine Leroy, vintage Port, Krug and Salon champagnes, and sometimes entire verticals (one bottle from each vintage year) or so-called library collections - historical collections of wines from a single château.

Magnums (1.5 liters), double magnums (3 liters) or even melchior - huge bottles of 18 liters or more - are often put up for auction. Sometimes there are unique lots: for example, bottles with autographs of winemakers or special editions bottled only for the auction.

Rare, but rare, are "wine futures": the buyer pays for wine that will be bottled and delivered to him in a few years. In this case, as a rule, we are talking about premium Bordeaux.

Among the buyers are private collectors who keep cellars with thousands of bottles at home.

There are investors who treat wine as a financial instrument. Last year, activity on the secondary market of wine increased, the platform iDealwine recorded - the number of sold bottles in annual terms increased by almost 18%, and the total value - by 15%. Buyers are mainly driven by the desire to find rare specimens. 

There are Michelin-starred restaurants that need unique positions on the wine list to surprise guests. For example, at Michelin-starred Osteria Francescana in Modena of my idol Massimo Bottura (one of Italy's most celebrated chefs), most of the wine list is prestigious barolos and barbarescos from rare years, along with top Burgundy. The team purchases some of these precious bottles through Christie's auctions or directly from private collectors.

Asian collectors, especially those from Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China, play a special role in the market today. Since the early 2010s, they have become the main buyers of top Burgundy lots. For many, rare wine is not just a drink, but a symbol of status and taste. It is also a gift for partners or an investment for children.

The list of the most expensive bottles sold at auctions mostly glimpses the same names. The most high-profile sale of recent years was a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1945, which gone in 2018 at Sotheby's for $558,000. The buyer was, incidentally, a private collector from Asia. Why did it cost so much? That year, the vines of the vineyard were uprooted after a phylloxera epidemic, and no more than 600 bottles were produced in total.

There are other impressive stories: in 2000, for example, a sold a six-liter bottle of 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon for $500,000 at the prestigious Napa Valley Wine Auction. 

The wine market is still quite a chamber market: there are not many unique bottles with legendary origins, and the rarest vintages can be counted on one's fingers. Trust in the name of the auction house and its experts turns out to be a decisive factor. For the collector, it is a guarantee that he will not buy a beautiful fake for hundreds of thousands.

A separate interesting layer is investment in wine. Many people are skeptical about it, saying, what is the point of keeping hundreds of bottles in the cellar when you can invest in stocks or gold? But rare wines are a tangible asset that can be touched, tasted or sold in pieces;

And even if things are quite bad in a crisis year, the wine market does not collapse dramatically: collectors are in no hurry to dump unique bottles cheaply. Often, on the contrary, demand grows, especially for rare unique vintages.

The world is increasingly going online, and even the most conservative houses cannot ignore it. Hybrid bidding is no longer a surprise to anyone: some participants sit in the hall with a glass of champagne, and some make bids from home via a tablet (to be fair, this does not prevent them from drinking champagne at the same time).

Online platforms like WineBid or iDealwine are developing a new segment - bidding for the general public, where you can buy not Domaine de la Romanée-Conti for half a million dollars, but, say, a rare Chablis for 200 euros.

In my opinion, an auction gives something that buying on a wine store's website or in a store will never give: authentication, a beautiful history, status and emotional drive. Buying wine from an auction for many people is part of a ritual and a sense of belonging to an elite private club. Agree: taking a bottle of auction wine out of the cellar can add a special charm to the evening.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor