Billionaire Koch’s brother to sell 20,000 bottles of wine
ON MAY 19, 20,000 bottles of wine from William Koch’s cellar will go to auction at Sotheby’s. The blockbuster sale, spread across three days (May 19 to May 21), represents close to half of the billionaire’s total collection and was acquired over the course of nearly 40 years.
“He’s bought on scale,” said Connor Kriegel, head of auction sales for Sotheby’s Wine, who organised the sale.
“Whenever he saw an opportunity to buy the things he loved, he bought.”
Koch’s collection, which will be broken up into about 2,700 lots, is estimated to go for US$10.5 million (RM44 million) to US$15 million.
More than 120 lots are from the coveted Chateau Latour, including one that consists of six 1961 magnums, which carries an estimate of US$42,000 to US$60,000.
There are also more than 80 lots of Chateau Mouton Rothschild; one, composed of 10 bottles of Mouton’s 1945 vintage, is expected to sell for US$80,000 to US$120,000.
“That’s one of the most legendary wines,” said Kriegel. “It’s the wartime vintage, and it’s one of the greatest wines they’ve ever made. To see it on such a scale is pretty spectacular.”
Koch has made headlines with his wine collection before; there were the four bottles that had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, for which Koch paid US$500,000 and then later determined were fake; and then there was the 2005 discovery that a fine-wine dealer named Rudy Kurniawan had sold him 211 suspicious bottles totaling more than US$2 million. (Koch filed suit, and Kurniawan was eventually sentenced to 10 years in jail.)
The Sotheby’s sale, in contrast, came about for the opposite reason: Koch simply had too much of a good thing. “He realised he could never get through all of this wine,” said Kriegel. In a statement announcing the sale, Koch echoed that sentiment.
“With around 43,000 bottles, I could not possibly consume everything in my cellar so I am delighted to offer this selection to allow collectors all over the world to enjoy the glorious moments that come with these wines,” he wrote. The auction comes at a relatively robust time for wine sales.
The market is down from its 2011 highs, but recent auctions have seen strong prices for unique bottles.
At Sotheby’s London wine sale last week, for instance, a single bottle of the same 1945 Mouton Rothschild offered in Koch’s collection sold for more than US$12,000.
“Mr Koch is a big name, and I suspect there will be a lot of excitement,” Kriegel said. “You’re going to be seeing clients from all over the globe; individual collectors, all sorts of people interested in wine.” — WP-Bloomberg
Mr Koch is a big name, and I suspect there will be a lot of excitement. You’re going to be seeing clients from all over the globe; individual collectors, all sorts of people interested in wine. Connor Kriegel, head of auction sales for Sotheby’s Wine