Octavian Vaults, the world’s largest fine wine storage facility, is planning to expand into Hong Kong.
Octavian, based in Wiltshire, UK, houses over 10,000 collections of fine wine from over 39 countries worldwide – around 750,000 cases in total, valued at an estimated £1bn.
Laurie Greer, operations director of Octavian, said that several delegates from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region had been over to visit the facilities.
‘They have made it clear that they would like the Octavian brand in the territory,’ he told decanter.com.
‘And we are definitely planning to do so, although in the current climate it would be a brave man who lays down several hundred thousands of pounds to build top-class warehouse facilities.
‘But we feel certain that at some point over the next few years we will be there, perhaps in a local partnership; it is such an important market and will increasingly be so,’ he added.
Currently around 25-30% of Octavian’s 1,800 private clients are from Asia, storing around 40,000 cases of fine wine, and it is the fastest-growing sector of their customer base.
Since Hong Kong abolished duty on wine in February 2008, it has been increasingly positioned as the fine wine hub of Asia.
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Written by Jane Anson
