S otheby’s Wine is delighted to present the first auction of our Fall season, Finest Wines featuring Bordeaux Icons from a Gentleman’s Cellar. Proudly part of the Sotheby’s Luxury Edit, this sale offers an array of the great wines of the world with an emphasis on those of Bordeaux. The bulk of the sale is derived from a single cellar, spanning lots 1-326 and revealing a collector devoted to the best of the Right and Left Banks.
Lot 327 stands alone as the only non-wine lot in the entire sale. For the first time ever, Sotheby’s New York will be offering a bottle of saké in the form of Dassai’s Beyond the Beyond, 2022–bottle number 1 of only 23 produced–explained in greater detail below.
The sale resumes with a magnum of 1990 La Tâche before giving way to beautifully-aged white Burgundy from Leflaive, Sauzet and Ramonet in an array of vineyard sites. Bordeaux then reemerges, punctuated by 1961 La Mission Haut-Brion, 1986 Mouton in double magnum and 1982 Lafite in both double and imperial magnum. The sale closes with an eclectic makeup of new and old world wines, featuring names like Conterno and Masseto, Dagueneau, Raveneau and Grange des Pères, as well as Diamond Creek and Screaming Eagle.
Lots 1-326: Bordeaux Icons from a Gentleman’s Cellar
Lot 327: Dassai Beyond the Beyond, 2022
Lots 328-343: Exceptional Burgundy and Rhône
Lots 344-397: Beautifully-aged Bordeaux + More, including large formats
Lots 398-409: The finest of Napa and Tuscany
Lots 410-489: Gems from the Old and New World
The first 326 lots of this auction hail from a single collection amassed over decades and reveal a collector’s sustained commitment and passion for Bordeaux, the vast majority of these wines purchased en premier and on release from Sherry-Lehman. The wines were stored in two custom-built, temperature-controlled cellars in the home of this collector until their removal by Sotheby’s Wine Specialists.
Lots 1 to 67 feature Pomerol exclusively, spanning the 70s, 80s and 90s with Pétrus, Lafleur and Trotonoy giving way to La Conseillante, L’Evangile and La Fleur Pétrus. The focus of the sale then shifts to the Left Bank with 96 consecutive lots of First Growth and notable depth and breadth in iconic vintages 1982, 1986, 1989 and 1990. Impressive verticals from Pichon Baron, Pichon Longueville and Lynch-Bages follow, with Beychevelle, Gruaud Larose and Rauzan-Ségla close behind and Saint-Émilion greats Angelus, Cheval Blanc and Château Figeac bringing the collection to a close.
Estimate: 2,800 - 3,500 USD
Estimate: 2,600 - 3,500 USD
Estimate: 600 - 1,000 USD
Estimate: 3,000 - 5,000 USD
Estimate: 1,800 - 2,400 USD
Estimate: 1,700 - 2,400 USD
Estimate: 1,200 - 1,800 USD
Estimate: 2,000 - 2,800 USD
Sotheby’s is honored to offer Dassai Beyond the Beyond 2022, a groundbreaking saké pressed in June of this year and the first bottle of saké ever to be sold at a Sotheby’s US Auction. No. 1 of only 23 produced, Beyond the Beyond was bottled using advanced metalwork but also cutting-edge freezing technology. Indeed, hand-bottled in titanium and rapidly frozen in an alcoholic solution at -30℃ to preserve its utmost freshness and prevent liquid expansion along with the separation of water and alcohol, it is the first saké of its kind.
The origins of this saké lie in the paddy fields of Takada Farm and in the award-winning grains of Yamada Nishiki produced there. Located in the Okayama Prefecture, this fourth-generation farm claimed top prize at the The Yamada Nishiki Project’s Grand Prix Auction and was declared the number one saké rice in Japan, each grain possessing a notably delicate shinpaku–the starchy core responsible for producing deep and rich flavor.
3,600kg of this award-winning rice was purchased by Asahi Shuzo and entrusted to its team of 170 brewery artisans, who used their combined experience to craft the very best saké with the aim of going beyond tradition. A collaborative effort in all respects, the titanium bottles hail from a metalworker in the Niigata Prefecture, while the cap of each bottle is hand-painted, urishi lacquered and decorated in the maki-e technique at the famed Takeshi Ito’s Nagano Prefecture boutique. A true piece of craftsmanship, no detail was spared in the production of this rarity.
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