Hidden treasures in Hong Kong

On the back of its fine wine boom, Hong Kong has witnessed a surge in the wine storage business since 2001 when Crown Wine Cellars threw open its doors in a former WWII munitions bunker.

Crown Wine Cellars – Hong Kong

Last week-end Hong Kong confirmed its status as the wine auction capital of the world with two extraordinary sales – Mouton Rothschild’s first ever  ex-Château sale in Asia, followed by the Saunier collection of Burgundies. Some of the bottles bought may stay on the surface to be admired and stroked and possibly even drunk, but much will disappear into Hong Kong’s network of underground cellars. It’s much safer there and more discreet at a time when the Chinese State is cracking down on conspicuous consumption

First to spot a gap in the fine wine storage market were Gregory De-eb and Jim Thompson. In 2001 they created the Crown Wine Cellars in a series of wartime bunkers buried 15 metres beneath Shouson Hill and built by the British Army in the 1930s. As De-eb told Post Magazine in a recent interview: “We have more than one million bottles of wine,” which he valued “conservatively” at over HK$1 billion.  Among the most expensive is a single bottle of Château Lafite 1869 which Sotheby’s sold for US$232,692 in 2010.

Storage has played a critical role in Hong Kong’s fine wine boom, and since 2001 more than forty cellars have followed Crown Cellar’s lead encouraged by the slashing of 40% duty rates in 2008. In the past wealthy collectors in the region had to store their wine overseas. “When we opened for business,” said De-eb. “For the first time, they could bring over cases and just extract a single bottle and only pay duty bottle by bottle.”

With around 500,000 square feet of fine wine storage in Hong Kong, he conceded that UK capacity may be two or three time greater. “But they have been doing it for 200 years,” said De-eb. “And I figure that, within 10 years, to be a third the size of the UK is pretty impressive.”