From Block To Cellar

Are auctions the fast track to amassing a wine collection?

- Koh Yuen Lin

Imagine snagging a case of the legendary 1961 Hermitage La Chapelle – valued at about 10,000 pounds (S$17,200) per bottle today – for just over a thousand pounds. That was exactly what Tan Ying Hsien witnessed at a Christie’s wine auction, where the lot was listed with an estimate in the low hundreds.

Before you start packing your suitcase for the next Christie’s or Sotheby’s wine auction, know that this happened in the 1980s. Yet, even then, the sought-after vintage from Rhone (which Tan describes as “the equivalent of gold dust in the wine world in those days”) was selling at double the realised price in the market. Attended mostly by industry professionals, and with lots geared towards the trade, wine auctions during those times often produced prices that were substantially lower than retail. And as a law student with a limited budget but an insatiable appetite for wine, Tan found auctions one of the most cost-effective ways of amassing a collection.

“Given the context of the auctions in those days, when fewer collectors and investors attended, prices were not as rarefied as they are today,” recalls Tan. Among the “memorable and affordable purchases” he made: a mixed lot of wines from 1955, including single bottles each of Krug, Chateau Latour and Graham’s vintage port. “The 1955 Krug stills stands as the single greatest bottle of wine I’ve consumed,” reminisces Tan.