Cape Town - Cape Town-based wine auction firm High Street Auctions is gearing up to put on the block more than 2 000 bottles of fine wines, some of them vintage wines that can no longer be found on the open market.
The online auction, which will be High Street Auctions director Stef Olivier’s ninth fine wine and spirits auction in 18 months, will go live on Thursday, October 6 at 10am and close on Monday, October 10, at 10am.
Olivier said an appraisal of the upcoming auction has set the value of the extraordinary collection at close to R2 million.
He said: “Dozens of vintages being sold in our four-day auction were produced in very small quantities by the estates concerned, and were made available only to a handful of collectors as investment wines.
“The vast majority of the collection also ranks in the Top Wine SA’s 100 most highly rated South African wines over the past 10 years 2012 to 2021 as reviewed by top judging panels around the world.”
Olivier said the wine on collection has been stored in one of Cape Town’s most celebrated cellars for several years, being added to frequently by one enthusiastic collector.
“Prominent in the collection is a massive selection of Kanonkop investment wines comprising more than 500 bottles.
Several Kanonkop cultivars and vintages from as early as 2011 will be sold, including Black Label Pinotage and cabernet sauvignon, as well as Paul Sauer, which has topped the list of most investment-worthy South African wines produced over the past 20 years, according to Olivier.
Other award-winning estates that will be a part of the auction include Vilafonte, MR Raats, Hartenberg, Mischa, Haskel, Rust en Vrede, Meerlust and Spier.
“I think that collectors are more likely to show interest in our 2012 Book 17 from De Toren they can be sold for over R3 000 per bottle. We have a total of nine bottles are available, being auctioned in individual lots,” he said.
Award-winning Italian chef and restaurateur Giorgio Nava, whose Vintage Collection list at his restaurant Carne in Cape Town is internationally renowned, said restaurateurs with fine dining establishments should register for the auction.
He said: “It is only from this sort of private collector sale that sommeliers will ever find some of these vintages because some of them are no longer available at the estates of origin anymore.
“I could perhaps have bought a Vilafonte 2013 in 2015, but now the only way it’ll appear in my Vintage Collection is if I purchase from private collections. For the hospitality industry, an auction like this is critical to ensuring customers have the best experience through pairing top wines with exquisite food,” Nava said.