(Bloomberg) -- Six bottles of 1998 Petrus from the Pomerol region of Bordeaux may fetch as much as HK$120,000 ($15,470), or more than $2,500 a bottle, when they go on sale at Sotheby's in Hong Kong next weekend while three magnums of the same producer's 2005 wine may sell for up to HK$150,000, according to an e-mailed statement from the auction house.
Twelve-bottle cases of Chateau Mouton Rothschild from 2005 are also for sale with an upper estimate of HK$55,000 per lot, while two six-liter imperials from the same Mouton vintage carry an upper estimate of HK$40,000 each, according to the catalog. Twelve-bottle cases of Chateau Lafite Rothschild may sell for HK$75,000 each, while 12-bottle lots of Chateau Latour from the more recent 2009 and 2010 vintages are priced at up to HK$100,000 each.
Petrus in Bordeaux's Pomerol district produces one of the region's most expensive wines.
The sale comes as the fine wine market is recovering after a 40 percent plunge in prices of many Bordeaux first growths following the peak of a bull run in mid-2011. The London-based Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 Index of top Bordeaux has risen 20 percent so far this year, rallying after five straight annual declines when wines from the region struggled to compete for attention from investors and collectors with other areas including Burgundy and Italy.
“The medium-term outlook for fine wine remains positive,” Andrew della Casa, director of The Wine Investment Fund, was cited as saying in a market report in London this month. The fund's report attributed the recovery in the London-based Liv-ex market to a combination of factors including relatively low merchant-stock levels, more attractive prices, the decline in the pound and the low interest-rate environment which makes other asset classes less attractive.
Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 chart of Bordeaux first-growth wine producers.
Historic wines in the sale include a double magnum of Lafite 1865, estimated to fetch as much as HK$350,000, and a single bottle of Mouton 1945, which may sell for up HK$100,000, according to the Sotheby's statement.
The wines will go on sale in a series of four auctions spread across two days starting Oct. 1, and the total event may raise close to HK$90 million, Sotheby's estimated.
To contact the reporter on this story: Guy Collins in London at guycollins@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Cesca Antonelli at fantonelli@bloomberg.net, Todd White, James Amott
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