Christie's Duke sale makes three times estimate

Christie's sold all 245 lots of Doris Duke's wine holdings on June 4 for US$3,755,711 - triple the presale estimate. The vintages ranged from 1904 to 1934.

The highest price fetched was US$111,625 for a dozen bottles of 1934 Romanée-Conti, estimated at US$35,000 to US$50,000.

Prices varied among sequential lots, with two 12-bottle lots of 1929 Les Gaudichots (now La Tâche), estimated at US$9,000 to US$14,000, each fetching US$88,125; a third lot went for US$76,375.

Two case lots of 1929 Château d'Yquem, priced at US$9,500 to US$13,000, each hammered home at US$72,850. Four six-bottle lots of 1934 Romanée-Conti, valued at US$17,000 to US$24,000, each generated US$56,400.

A jeroboam of 1928 Louis Roederer, English Cuvée, brut, priced at US$350 to US$500, found US$3,500. A hand-blown virtual jeroboam of 1918 Château Latour, valued at US$3,500 to US$5,000, grossed US$12,000. Six lots of 1929 Château Haut-Brion, booked at US$4,000 to US$6,000, went for US$12,000 and US$13,000. A 1929 Château Talbot, posted at US$400 to US$500, found US$1,300.

A pitched back-and-forth battle for three bottles of 1921 Dom Pérignon, that Champagne's first commercial vintage, drove the bidding past the US$1,500 to US$2,200 estimate to a hammer price of US$21,000.

NB US$1.00 = €0.812