Chinese taste for wine grows

When a bottle of wine costs more at an auction than an undergraduate education at Harvard, some hear alarm bells ringing alongside the rap of the auctioneer’s gavel.

But as the latest fine wine auction at Christie’s in Hong Kong last week showed Chinese interest in the market remains unsatiated.

Chateau Latour vintages, a high end wine from Bordeaux, raked in a total of over HK$59m (US$7m), continuing the upward trajectory of these seasonal sales. Bids were, in keeping with recent trends, astronomical.

A case of six Chateau Latour 1961 magnums (1.5 litres each) went for HK$1.8m, nearing Sotheby’s record-breaking sale last season when three bottles of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1869 were sold for $HK1.8m each. The highest amount paid last week for a single bottle was HK$540,000 for a Latour 1863 vintage.

While collectors’ worship for Chateau Latour doesn’t quite match that for its more expensive counterpart, Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, last week’s aggressive in-house and online bidding indicated international demand for fine French wines remains strong.

The Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 Index has recorded a steady rise of almost 40 per cent in the prices of fine wines over the past three years. Demand for wine, as was the case with art, was relatively resistant to the global financial crisis and prices recovered quickly. Interest from China’s wealthy and the removal of import duties on wine and spirits by the Hong Kong government in 2008 helped offset the impact of the financial crisis post Lehman’s collapse.

The steep rise in prices has fuelled fears of a Bordeaux bubble, which are aired periodically, as with other rapidly inflating sectors of China’s economy. Shanghai-based economist, Andy Xie, makes such a case and attributes the bubble to, among other factors, speculative hoarding by Chinese traders and businesspeople looking to reap profits from escalating prices.

But with auction houses selling nearly 100 per cent of scheduled lots, many to known connoisseurs and eager amateurs, such sentiment may seem premature.
Simon Tam, head of Christie’s wine department for China, remains optimistic about the growth of the wine market there.

“People in China buy wine to drink and take pleasure in it, and more people buy to drink or invest in collecting rather than to trade…The wine market in China is only about 10 years old and growing, and these prices are part of the growth phase. When wine lovers’ collections are fulfilled, [the prices] will level off at some point, but it will not be a shock.”

As more of China’s growing legions of millionaires acquire a taste for fine wine , their demand looks set to maintain the momentum of rising prices for some years to come.