Fat catalogues will be filling letterboxes this month as America’s new auction season begins with seven sales in September alone.
New York auction house Acker Merrall & Condit is the first to open its doors on Friday with a sale heavy on red Bordeaux and Burgundy.
Other highlights include a bottle of 1935 Inglenook Pinot Noir, a magnum of 1937 Bollinger Champagne and a bottle of 1870 Château Lafite-Rothschild (US$8,000, £4,352).
Morrell & Company, on 10 September, also offers an 1870 Lafite-Rothschild (US$9,000, £4,896) while a 32-bottle lot of Mouton-Rothschild covers the 1970-1990 vintages and an imperial of Cheval Blanc 2000 is on offer for US$8,000 (£4,352).
Zachys’ top offering on 15-16 September is a first release of old vintages straight from the cellar of Spain’s Vega Sicilia, including Unicos from 1942, 1953, 1967, 1974, 1989 and 1991. A methuselah of 1971 Romanée-Conti from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti will also be going under the hammer at an estimated US$50,000 (£27,190).
The gem in the Aulden Cellars/Sotheby’s collection consists of 55 lots of regular bottles and large formats directly from Warren Winiarski’s Stag’s Leap Cellars in Napa. The sale on September 17 includes vintages from 1973 onward. The collection highlights one bottle of the 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon, (US$300, £163) – chosen best red wine in Steven Spurrier’s seminal France versus California blind tasting in Paris in 1976.
On the same day in Chicago, Hart Davis Hart is claiming to offer ‘the most important collection ever to be offered in [the city’s] 23 years of wine auctions’.
The collection, from a ‘very important American collector’, represents the equivalent of nearly 11,000 bottles. These include rare bottles of Château d’Yquem, including 1884, 1934, 1945, 1947 and 1959.
NYWines/Christie’s will feature, on 24 September, a 2004 Penfolds Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon, made from vines planted in the 1880’s, and a Penfolds 2004 Bin 60A Coonawara Cabernet Sauvignon, Kalimna Shiraz, ‘modeled on the famous 1962 Bin A.’
Edward Roberts International’s small 370-lot sale on the same day offers two bottles each of Guigal’s 1990 Côte Rotie single-vineyard La Landonne and La Mouline and one bottle of the single-vineyard La Turque.
NB – Prices shown are highest estimates
Written by Howard G Goldberg in New York
