Auctioneers are getting everywhere and, it seems, into everything. At Stratford upon Avon recently Colliers Bigwood & Bewlay held an auction, but the lots up for sale were not properties but bottles of fine wine.
According to Steven Bruce, managing director of the Stratford saleroom, it is not unusual for Colliers to be involved in this: “We have been auctioneers for chattels of various sorts for well over a century.”
But he agrees that there are only three or four auction rooms outside London that sell fine wines regularly, and Colliers have been selling them for 12 years.
At the auction, French wines tended to predominate, with a bottle of Chateau Latour 1959 and a bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1959 together fetching £220. Eleven bottles of Chateau Palmer 1970 in their original wooden case fetched over £400.
The highest bid of the day came for a bottle of Grand Champagne Reserve Cognac de F B Martin & Co 1814 which fetched £150.
Colliers hold auctions of fine wines four times a year, but there is little chance of their involvement in fine wines ever rivalling that of property.
