Record auction price for wine – R800 000 for two magnums

Talk about being put in our place. At September's annual Nederberg Wine Auction, SA winemakers celebrated a price per litre that surged 68% to a record $54. PE businessman Peter Pitsiladi paid the top price of $588 for a dozen bottles of Nederburg Edelkeur 1979. But as the story below shows, that wouldn't have even raised a bid at last night's Sotheby's wine auction in New York. Locals can look north and dream. C'est la Vie. – AH

By Guy Collins

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Two magnums of Chateau Petrus 1961 from Bordeaux's Pomerol district on the right bank of the Dordogne sold for $79,625 at a Sotheby's auction in New York, beating presale estimates.

Other leading lots included a 34-magnum collection of Hermitage La Chapelle Paul Jaboulet Aine from the Rhone, which fetched $61,250, and 11 bottles of La Tache 1985 Domaine de la Romanee-Burgundy, which sold for $52,063.

The sale on Dec. 6, which totaled $4.44 million, came as prices in the Bordeaux fine wine market are showing signs of recovery after a slump from their peak of 2011. The Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 Index has stabilized since August after a 16-month slide which started in April last year.

The sale saw "spirited bidding from all over the world," according to Duncan Sterling, head of New York wine auctions at Sotheby's, cited in an e-mailed statement.

Other top wins in the auction included a four-magnum lot of Chambertin 1990 Armand Rousseau and a case of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982, each of which sold for $30,625. = BLOOMBERG