Petrus ’81 features in Acker Hong Kong auction with Le Pin ’92

Mature Pomerol wines including Petrus 1981 and 1983 and Le Pin 1992 are among Bordeaux vintages on offer at an Acker Merrall & Condit auction in Hong Kong this month as sales resume before the Chinese New Year.
Twelve bottles of Petrus 1983 are estimated to fetch as much as HKD144,000 (USD18,500), as are 12 bottles of Le Pin 1992, New York-based Acker said in an e-mailed statement. Three magnums of Petrus 1981 carry an upper price valuation of HK$72,000.
The Jan. 23 auction comes after Bordeaux’s share of the fine-wine trade on the London-­based Liv-ex market climbed to 85 percent last month. That’s 10 percentage points above last year’s average and the highest level in more than two years, according to a Cellar Watch report. Top Bordeaux producers’ prices as measured by the Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 Index slid 40 percent from their 2011 peak, before starting to recover at the end of last year.
“Although 2015 did not provide the definitive upturn expected, the fine-­wine market has stabilized,” London-based fund manager The Wine Investment Fund said in a report. The general trajectory of prices “suggests that the next move may be up,” it said.
Other leading wines in the sale include five 12-bottle lots of Chateau Cheval Blanc 2000, each of which carry an upper price estimate of HK$96,000, and three magnums of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2000, estimated to fetch as much as HK$68,000.
Acker boosted its global wine sales, including online auctions, by 12 percent to $69.3 million last year. The U.S. accounted for $35.7 million and Hong Kong $33.6 million, according to provisional data from the company. Physical auctions in New York made up $30.6 million and equivalent Hong Kong-based sales were almost $33 million. Guy Collins