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À votre santé: Strauss & Co toasts its successful sale of a single-owner collection of French wines

20 May 2021

This vaunted French wine formed part of an impressive 99-lot collection of fine wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace and Champagne offered by a single Cape Town collector. The session concluded with 92 lots sold and earned R2.1 million. The lot sell-through rate was 93%.

“This noteworthy collection of immaculately kept French wines generated considerable interest among wine connoisseurs,” says Roland Peens, Strauss & Co’s wine specialist and director of the Cape Town wine merchant Wine Cellar. “The collection was imported to South Africa in the mid-2000s and kept in a large private cellar in in Cape Town. Most of the winning bids were placed by local buyers.”

“Incredibly rare, vintage Burgundies from Rousseau, Roumier and Dujac sold very well,” added Peens. “Four bottles of Armand Rousseau’s 1993 iconic Chambertin averaged R42 675 per bottle, including buyer’s premium. Nine bottles of George Roumier 1993 Bonne Mares fetched R32 243, while Lafite 2000 and Margaux 2000 sold for R24 656 and R20 863 respectively.”

The top-selling lots included a three-bottle allocation of the 1993 Armand Rousseau Chambertin, a wine characterised as “utterly complete” by critic Jancis Robinson. The lot sold for R125 180. A sealed case of Château Margaux’s eponymous Bordeaux, a wine described by critic James Molesworth as “a jaw-dropper”, achieved R125 180.

The single-owner collection of French wines included a number of rare vintages. A single bottle of Chateau Haut Brion’s 1966 Pessac-Léognan, a first-growth Bordeaux, attracted considerable interest and sold above estimate for R18 760. A 1962 vintage Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes, often described as the greatest sweet wine, achieved R19 933.

“The outcome of the fine-wine sale is a wonderful outcome for the seller, a passionate and dedicated collector who devoted a great deal of energy to his French wine collection after being introduced to producers from Burgundy and Bordeaux,” says Bina Genovese, Strauss & Co’s joint managing director.

The catalogue for Strauss & Co’s three-day live sale in Johannesburg includes noteworthy single-owner art collections. On Monday, 17 May, at 2pm, 17 paintings acquired by the late entrepreneur Toy Mostert will go under the hammer. The Mostert Collection includes top-class works by Maggie Laubser, JH Pierneef and Pieter Wenning. On Tuesday, 18 May, at 7pm, Strauss & Co will be offering three sculptures from the Afrox Corporate Art Collection, including two early cat bronzes from 1996 by celebrated sculptor Dylan Lewis. The session also features a Walter Battiss painting and Edoardo Villa sculpture formerly owned by art historian Esmé Berman.

Strauss & Co’s next fine-wine sale will return the focus to South African fine wines with a themed selection from Stellenbosch’s best producers.

The sale will be held exclusively online and commences on Monday, 31 May, and concludes on Monday, 7 June 2021.