Paris wine auction rakes in one million euros
PARIS: A wine auction from the cellar of Paris’ famed Tour d’Argent restaurant fetched more than one million euros, surprising organisers who said yesterday the bids were higher than expected.
The famous Left Bank restaurant sold off 18,000 wines and cognacs from its four-century-old cellar to make space for new bottles during the two-day auction. The star attraction was a 1788 Clos du Griffier cognac that sold for $37,000. The final figure for the sales was to be released later in the day but Tour d’Argent organisers said it would be more than the one million euros they had expected to raise.
On the second day of the sale yesterday, wine lovers and collectors put in rival bids for Cotes du Rhone, Alsatian and Loire valley whites as well as Bourgogne reds that are in rich supply in the Tour d’Argent cellar.
Six bottles of 1988 Vosne Romanee were sold for 5,100 euros, far above their estimated value of 2,750 euros. Two bottles of 1919 Vouvray fetched 600 euros while four 1990 Vouvray “Goutte d’or” were sold off for 2,700 euros each, far beyond the estimated value of the wine at 325 euros.
“I love this wine,” commented Ludovic Roche, a 39-year-old insurance salesman who had his heart set on a bottle of Vouvray. “As far as I’m concerned, a good Vouvray is better than any Chateau d’Yquem.” Hong Kong businessman Arthur Wang dropped by the auction to replenish his cellar, putting in bids for a few choice Bourgognes and raising the stakes for a 1961 Vouvray — the year of his birth.
Bruno Hamon, a 47-year-old banker, took home some Pouilly Fume to store in his 2,000-bottle cellar at home. “I already have about one hundred bottles from the same vineyard and it’s the best dry white Sauvignon. The Tour d’Argent stamp on each bottle is a bonus,” he commented.
The 18,000 bottles sold during the two-day auction represent just four percent of the restaurant cellar’s total stock, one of the world’s greatest collections of wine.
The restaurant, popular with celebs like Woody Allen and Paul Coelho, hopes to buy new wines to store in cellars now crammed with 430,000 bottles of wines and spirits up to 200 years old.
