Verlin collection sells for US$7m
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A major wine collection has sold for a record US$7.1m in Chicago.
Chicago auction house Hart Davis Hart sold all 1,876 lots from the cellar of collector Steven Verlin for US$7.1m (£3.5m) on 4-5 May.
Verlin, a New Jersey resident, was a founding partner of Veritas, a major wine-oriented Manhattan restaurant. He died in August.
The sale set a record for gross revenue at a Chicago auction.
To highlight the collection’s value, which was estimated at $4-6m (£2-3m), Hart published its catalogue in hard cover, and the single-owner sale, the auction house’s first since its founding in 2004, also introduced real-time online-bidding.
The top earner was a 6-litre imperial of 1990 Pétrus, fetching $59,750 (£30,000). An imperial of 1947 Mouton Rothschild and a Nebuchadnezzar of 1992 Domaine Ramonet Montrachet went for $53,775 (£26,900) each.
Two bottles of 1870 Lafite, recorked and given reproduction labels in 1998, went for $8,365 (£4,200), just above its low estimate of $8,000 (£4,000).
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Other very old wines included a 1929 Latour ($3,107) and six bottles of 1945 Haut-Brion ($26,290).
Written by Howard G Goldberg in New York
Howard G Goldberg is a wine writer and critic based in New York City. He made his name writing about wine for The New York Times, where he worked for 34 years. He has written various books on food and wine, including Prime: The Complete Prime Rib Book and All About Wine Cellars. He compiled The New York Times Book of Wine – a collection of the publication’s best wine articles.