The wine collection of Henry Tang, the former chief secretary of Hong Kong, sold strongly at Christie's on March 15-16, as the wine market continues its strong start in 2013.
 Every bottle was sold with a special seal to indicate its illustrious provenance |
The collection realised $6.1m, making a 64.8% increase on its $3.7m valuation prior to the auction. The sale follows the announcement that the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 index is up 3.1% in February, and has shown a 6.0% increase in value since the start of the year.
Henry Tang's collection is considered one of the foremost holdings of Burgundy in Asia. Despite recent controversy surrounding Tang's career, he insisted that the reason for the sale was that he has collected too many bottles.
"I simply have way too much wine to drink. I have been giving away wine to friends and family simply to reduce the stock, but still have too much to manage," Tang told the Decanter.
Taking the title of top lot in this illustrious collection was a six-magnum lot of 1995 Romanee-Conti Grand Cru, which made an impressive $156,741. Following were 12 bottles of the 1978 DRC Montrachet, which brought $109,718.
Montrachet proved popular among bidders with the third highest bids seen by the 1992 Leflaive, six magnums of which sold for $109,718. Also starring was the Henri Jayer Vosne-Romanee Cros Parantoux from 1996, which realised $87,775.
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