Christie’s and Decanter raised a record £25,000 to benefit WaterAid at a fine and rare wine auction on Thursday – the largest single sum raised for the initiative to date.
Of the ‘Wine to Water’ items, the highest grossing sales were 48-bottle lots of red Bordeaux and white Burgundy mixed cases, containing premium wines from Pauillac, Pomerol, Margaux, Chablis, and Meursault, which went for £748 each.
The auction also offered rare wines from private collections in addition to the ‘Wine to Water’ sales.
Chris Munro, Christie’s head of wine in London, said: ‘The sale was 100% sold with many wines smashing through their pre-sale estimates.’
As Munro anticipated, the highest-selling lot contained ten cases of Lafite Rothschild 2002 for £75,000. Bid by a private Asian client through Christie’s’ LIVE website, it is the most expensive wine lot sold online to date.
Since 2005, Decanter has generated over £200,000 for WaterAid by donating wine submitted to its Decanter World Wine Awards competition to Christie’s for sale on behalf of the charity.
WaterAid provides rural communities in Africa and Asia with safe water, sanitation and hygiene education, and also seeks to influence water policy at an international level.
To find out more about WaterAid visit www.wateraid.org. For further information about Decanter’s partnership with WaterAid please email shreena_patel@decanter.com.
Written by Regine Lee
