Wines & Spirits

A fine 1875 vintage… never opened… so what did this bottle of wine sell for?

Sotheby's have made their first foray into the wine retail market by opening their first wine store in Hong Kong.

The Wine Investment Association has launched its new code of practice to seek to safeguard the general public against fraud, malpractice and misrepresentation.

The failure of wine investment funds to the tune of around £100m in the past four years has prompted the industry to set up a regulatory body to police such ventures.

Dreweatts have announced a new joint venture with online wine trading platform bidforwine.com which provides live online and timed bidding services for connoisseurs, traders and investors, backed by storage facilities at the EHD bonded warehouse in Weybridge.

Christie’s are broadening their range of activity by launching their first online-only sale, Signature Cellars, an auction of fine and rare wines that will be open for bidding from August 6 to 20.

DEMAND for fine wines showed no sign of abating at the latest round of auctions in Hong Kong.

SOTHEBY’S have launched a retail and online wine business based in New York.

CHRISTIE’S first wine sale in Asia for seven years will take place in November after the auctioneers have decided to reintroduce wine auctions in Hong Kong.

CHRISTIE’S have maintained their lead over their rivals in wine sales thanks mainly to strong totals posted in Europe.

Christie’s held the first auction of spirits in New York since Prohibition on December 8.

Following Christie’s decision to hold liquor sales in New York, Boston auctioneer Skinner is to launch a wine department.

THE spotlight turned onto the vintage wine market last week after reports emerged concerning the sale of fake bottles. Media speculation has followed the launch of an FBI investigation into whether sellers knowingly sold counterfeit wines for up to $100,000 a bottle despite doubts about their authenticity.

FOR a century and a half, the family breweries which peppered Stroud, supplied the Cotswolds with a variety of ales.

A 90-year-old member of the Wine Label Circle has lost 70 items from his collection during a break-in at his East Sussex home. The wine labels were the only items taken in the theft.

TWO former Sotheby’s executives and a leading wine retailer have announced the formation of a new Chicago-based firm specialising in the sale of fine wine by retail and auction.

RARE pub jugs have a habit of turing up in unusual places. The previously unrecorded Knotty Ash Ales jug, right, made in the latter years of the 19th century for Joseph Jones & Co., had been spotted in a thrift shop in British Columbia earlier this year.

In terms of collecting focus, much of the pre-sale attention for the Harvey’s Wine Museum sale at Bonhams centred on the October 1 glass and ceramics auction.

FOR Harvey's read Bristol Cream, but there is far more to this celebrated brand than the nation’s best known sherry.

Clearly Tony Blair would be best advised to take round a bottle of Wooldings ’94, rather than Mouton ’89 the next time he pops over to the Palace for dinner. As has been widely reported in the media, the Prime Minister recently received half a case of Château Mouton-Rothschild’s 1989 vintage as a 50th birthday present from President Jacques Chirac.