Browsing the fabulous line-up for this month’s Dorotheum & Falstaff Easter wine auction? We’ve picked out five particularly tempting lots to meet every style and budget but all well worth a bid.
The Dorotheum and Falstaff are once again launching a high-quality wine auction online with 1700 bottles. Here are five tempting lots:
Estimate: €4,600
Starting bid: €3,000
St Emilion estates may jostle litigiously within their classification hierarchy, but few would dispute the pre-eminence of Château Ausone. Under the consistent care of the Vauthier family over many generations, this estate also benefits from its prime spot on the appellation’s limestone plateau. Buying very mature wine always carries an element of risk, but 1949 is regarded as one of Bordeaux’s great post war vintages. The magnum format not only favours older wines, but makes it a little easier to share those precious drops.
Estimate: €3,600
Starting bid: €1,800
If you’re on a tight budget then it’s probably best to skip the Burgundy lots altogether, but Domaine René Engel combines star quality with a rarity that makes its wines rather irresistibly eye-catching when they come up for auction. That’s about the only place you’re likely to find them these days: the estate was sold in 2006 to French billionaire businessman François Pinault and has since been renamed Domaine d’Eugenie. Add in the fact that René Engel’s highly regarded Grands-Échezeaux was just a 0.5 hectare parcel and it’s obvious this label is going to be an increasingly rare, expensive sight at auction.
Estimate: €220
Starting bid: €150
Champagne may be the party drink par excellence, but a growing number of fine wine lovers now recognise the age-worthy calibre offered by the top examples. With the secondary market hotting up as a result, current prices for the biggest names may soon start to look rather cheap. 2010 wasn’t a starry vintage for Champagne like 2008 or 2012, but that didn’t stop Dom Pérignon from making a notably starry wine. Drink it now, or age with confidence for another decade – more if you’re a convert to properly mature Champagne (although if that’s the case then check out Lot #299, the 1985 Dom Pérignon). Either way, if this wine achieves its estimate then that’s still no more than you’ll pay for the latest vintage in a local wine shop.
Estimate: €150
Starting bid: €100
It’s refreshing – and, given the auction’s location, very fitting – to see such a stellar assortment of top Austrian wines in this catalogue. Names such as Alzinger, Krutzler, Schiefer, Tement, Knoll and FX Pichler make it difficult to pick just one, but the Wachau has a particularly long, bright track record in Austria’s fine wine scene and Franz Hirtzberger is one of this region’s acknowledged greats. Treat yourself to this mature Riesling from a top vineyard and as you sip consider the outrage that one of the world’s great white wines should command such a relatively modest price. The only remedy is to leave white Burgundy to the unimaginative crowds and take full advantage.
Estimate: €1,200
Starting bid: €600
Yes, you really did read that vintage correctly. This wine was born at a time when Tsar Nicholas II, Queen Victoria and Franz Josef I were on the throne, while Grover Cleveland was president of the United States. This was the year that the International Olympic Committee was founded, the Dreyfus affair rocked France and the First Sino-Japanese War broke out. Very few wines, however grand, could hope to survive such a span of history, but madeira appears almost immortal. It’s impossible to put a value on such a museum piece, but all things considered, this estimate seems quite the bargain.
