Bonhams is entering New York City’s hotly competitive wine auction arena.
Bonhams said yesterday it will hold its first wine sale on 16 October. Auctioneers will take bids in both Manhattan and San Francisco, and the event will be simulcast in New York as well as in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the house is called Bonhams & Butterfields.
The ‘sale heralds the beginning of a regular wine auction schedule in New York,’ the company’s public relations office said.
‘The Bonhams Group views the continued growth of the New York sale room as a key part of its international expansion,’ Richard Pike, the New York wine and whisky director, told Decanter.com.
A December auction will also follow the tri-city simulcast format. Bonhams is to decide at year’s end if it will conduct stand-alone sales in 2011 at its headquarters, on upscale Madison Avenue in midtown.
Bonhams’ entry brings to six the number of houses holding New York sales. The others are Acker Merrall & Condit, NYWines/Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Morrell & Company and Zachys.
At Bonhams in New York the 16 October curtain will rise with some 306 lots, dominated by blue-chip Bordeaux. Afterward, the rest of the 820-lot catalogue will be gaveled from San Francisco.
One highlight in Manhattan is a case of 1982 Lafite Rothschild, estimated at US$30,000 – 40,000. The broader West Coast inventory includes California, Burgundy, Bordeaux and the Rhône.
Written by Howard G. Goldberg in New York
