New breed of fine wine collection to go under the hammer

Online auctioneer iDealwine is offering a cellar of Franco-Italian wines full of rare and highly- sought-after cuvées from ‘grower’ domains at its next sale this month.

photo credit: iDealwine

Starting on Friday 9 October, the sale features over 1,300 bottles which have been consigned by a French collector from Burgundy.

The collection was assembled in just 10 years, the consignor using his local contacts to get his hands on wines from estates such as Arnaud Ente, Ramonet, Coche-Dury, Armand Rousseau and Dujac.

In addition the French half of his collection includes top domains from Champagne, the Rhône, Loire, Jura and Beaujolais, names such as: Anselme Selosse, Jamet, Jean-Louis Chave, Clos Rougeard, Didier Dagueneau, Yvon Métras, Ganevat and Domaine de l’Anglore.

From Italy, meanwhile, there is a sizeable contingent of Piedmontese wines from the likes of Bruno Giacosa, Rinaldi and Giacomo Conterno as well as Barbarescos from Roagna and then Brunello from l’Azienda Agricola Cerbaiona and Montepulciano from Vietti alongside other wines from the Langhe and Friuli.

The Italian wines were actually acquired through a ‘swap’ of some of the consignor’s Burgundy with bottles from a Piedmontese collection. All the wines have been professionally stored after purchase.

The collection is interesting in that it represents less of a ‘classic’ fine wine cellar and more of a ‘sommelier’ one, full of the labels and producers whose wines have swept the lists and shelves of the hippest wine places from San Francisco to Tokyo (going eastwards) over the past few years.

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Leroy, Lafite, Mouton Rothschild and Dom Pérignon are nowhere to be seen, replaced instead with Coche-Dury, Dujac, Chave, Métras and Ganevat; the new wave of desirable French domains.

This phenomenon has been remarked on by both the drinks business and iDealwine in the recent past, along with the rising cost of some of these wines. iDealwine has been seeing increasing amounts of these ‘grower’ labels offered and quickly snapped up on its platform and offered a similar array of “natural wines” in a big sale last October as well.

How much longer will it be before the trend bleeds through to the bigger collections and auction houses?