The auction of wines from celebrated Parisisan restaurant La Tour d'Argent made €1,542,717.
The oldest and most expensive bottle sold was a Clos du Griffier Cognac from 1788 that reached €30,980, and whose sale price will be donated to the Petit Princes charity.
In total 1,800 lots were sold, around 18,000 bottles of wines and cognacs from the restaurant’s four-century-old cellar. There were no reserve prices, but everything reached its low estimate price, with most going for 10 or 20% above the high estimate.
‘I’m happy that people have shown a certain confidence in our wine list and our way of stocking wines,’ Tour d’Argent sommelier David Ridgway told decanter.com.
‘Many people are worried today of fakes and bad storage, and I’m sure the provenance of these bottles made a difference with the auction results.’
Among the lots sold were 12 bottles of Chateau Lafite 1997 for €3,500, 3 bottles of Chateau Margaux 1990 for €2,500 and a single bottle of Chateau Lafite 1982 for €1,700.
Six bottles of 1988 Vosne Romanee were sold for €5,100, well above their estimate of €2,750.
‘We only seem to have made space for another 7,000 bottles,’ said Ridgway, ‘but will now have some cash flow to buy, among other things, the 2009 en primeur wines from Bordeaux, as I feel sure our friends in the region will be asking a fair amount for them.’
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Written by Jane Anson
