AUCTIONS AND WINE: RECESSION? NOT FOR FINE WINES - CHRISTIE’S SOARED TO 71 MILLION DOLLARS. RIVAL SOTHEBY DID VERY WELL, TOO. BOURGOGNE AND BORDEAUX TOP BOTTLES

Is the world economy in the middle of a recession? The wine market doesn’t seem to notice and in 2010 Christie’s earned a record 71 million dollars from wine sales the world over.
“Wine sales have actually risen this year”, said Charles Curtis, manager of wine at Christie’s. In the spring, in 10 auctions held in London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam, New York and Hong Kong, sales reached a total of 20.9 million dollars for wines and liquors. In the autumn, instead, in 13 auctions in the same cities, sales were 50.5 million dollars”, Curtis explained, “more than the total for all of 2009 (50.4 million dollars). “I think the prices (in the wine sector) will break all records”, Curtis said, because there are markets, like the Asian ones, in continual growth.

Even the rival Sotheby’s, which has not made their 2010 earnings from wine auctions public yet, will begin 2011 with an “auction in Hong Kong of the wine collection of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, (creator of some of the most famous musicals in the world, such as “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera”) who has decided to sell part of his collection - 747 bottles with many lots of fine Burgundy and Bordeaux wines.

Source: Ansa-Reuters