Asian buyers drive London sale

Buyers from across Asia drove Sotheby’s recent London sale and scooped up the top lots of Henri Jayer that were on offer.

Taking place on 22 October, the auction realised £684,579 in total with two lots Henri Jayer’s Vosne-Romanée Cros Parantoux 1990 achieving the top prices.

However, while the three bottle lot achieved £18,800 – well above its high estimate – the five bottle lot only achieved £19,975, a little below the low estimate of £20,000.

Three bottles of 1987 Richebourg from Jayer went for £17,625, another seven bottles of 1990 Vosne-Romanée £15,863, two six bottle lots of 1988 Echézeaux made £13,513 apiece and four bottles of 1990 Vosne-Romanée Les Beaumonts £12,338.

Of the seven Jayer lots that made up the top lots offered at the sale, five went to Asian (or an Asian) client, one to the UK trade and one to a South American buyer.

Asian buyers also scooped a bottle of 1999 Romanée-Conti from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti for £9,165 and 12 bottles of 1986 Lafite for £6,815.

Stephen Mould, European head of Sotheby’s Wine Department, commented: “Asian buyers from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore featured strongly in Wednesday’s wine auction.

“Unsurprisingly, Burgundy from Henri Jayer provided the highest selling lots in the sale. Bordeaux prices were solid overall and it was good to see parcels of the 2008 vintage being snapped up along with plenty of other affordable cases of wine on offer.  We now look forward to the New York sale on 15 November followed closely by London on 19 November.”