Asian wine collectors defy slowdown

Over last weekend, investors bid aggressively for rare Bordeaux wine at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong. The sale showed that Asian collectors were still prepared to pay high prices for wine, even in a global economic slowdown.

Christie’s booked HK$31.5m ($4m) from the sale of 231 lots of wines on Saturday, surpassing a pre-sale estimate of about HK$20m.

It was said that bidding at the Christie’s wine auction was aggressive, reflecting strong demand in Asia – all top 10 of the lots were sold to Asian private buyers.

The Hong Kong government’s decision in February to abolish wine duties also helped.
For art auction business, other sales were unlikely to perform as well as the wine auction. But as no one can escape from this financial crisis, the art market has started to show signs of faltering amid the economic downturn, after a six-year boom. In a separate charity auction in Macao on Saturday, Stanley Ho, the casino tycoon, paid US$200,000 for a 1.08kg truffle, or $185.19 per gramme. A year ago, he paid a record $330,000 for a 1.5kg specimen, or $220 per gramme.

However, for the wine collectors, it’s not all doom and gloom. There will be slight price correction but not a bubble bursting in the wine price.