S
otheby’s Wine is honoured to have the opportunity to bring to market The Connoisseur’s Cellar, starting with a 2-day, live auction extravaganza on 30 and 31 March in our Chater House Maison. Coinciding with the end of Art Basel, this outstanding live sale represents our very first live wine auction in Sotheby’s Hong Kong Maison’s atmospheric, flagship gallery space – a testament to the importance and positioning of this superlative cellar.
This extraordinary Single-Owner cellar is a truly comprehensive collection in every sense of the word. Its breadth and depth is incredibly impressive, and the lots offered in this first auction, comprising more than 7,000 bottles, still represent only a small portion of the wider cellar, which numbers in the tens of thousands of bottles in total.
The Connoisseur is a giant of the Hong Kong wine scene. Over multiple decades, he has put in a huge amount of time, effort and travel to build very close relationships directly with many of the world’s most respected winemakers. He is also something of a seir; having been a collector of top Burgundy for many years, he was very early to spot the growing trend towards consumer preferences for more elegant, lower intervention winemaking styles in the region, and was quick to capitalize. The Connoisseur was amongst the first people in Asia to build significant allocations from the likes of Domaine Leroy and Domaine Prieuré Roch, but also more under-the-radar winemakers such as Philippe Pacalet and Yann Durieux, who adopt a similarly sustainable approach to their viticulture and in the winery. Some of these producers are represented in this auction for the first time across such significant depth of vintages and cuvées.
The Connoisseur’s Cellar: A Boundless Burgundy Collection, Day 2
On Day 2 of The Connoisseur’s Cellar, we will sample the Connoisseur’s more visionary tastes and preferences for emerging and next-generation producers. That is certainly not to say that all of the blue-chip, star pulling power is expended on Day 1! Within Burgundy, we encounter market darlings, including an amazing depth of stock from producers such as Cécile Tremblay, Fourrier, Lamarche, Robert Arnoux, Denis and Arnaud Mortet, Sylvain Cathiard, Hudelot-Noëllat, and Dugat-Py and Claude Dugat. But it is on Day 2 that we also encounter the rising stars of Philippe Pacalet, Yann Durieux, Jean Pierre Guyon and more.
Beyond Burgundy, we see a clear indication of the Connoisseur’s more prophetic and adventurous qualities. From Bordeaux, all of the classic names of the Left and Right Banks are represented in expected depth; at the same time, we see appearances from the likes of vanguard garagiste Peby Faugères. Further afield, California fans will be excited to have the opportunity to fill their boots with an incredible range of mature stock from Sine Qua Non, including some of their rarest cuvées ever produced from the early 2000s.
