Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Paris City Hall raised 961,030 euros ($1.2 million) in an auction of fine wines, as a bidding war between British and Chinese merchants drove prices 75 percent higher than the 550,000 euros catalog estimate, breaking records for two vintages.
Stephen Williams, managing director of London's Antique Wine Company, spent 10,000 euros for the most expensive labels in the catalog, two bottles of 1986 Romanee Conti with an estimated value of 1,500 euros before the sale.
Almost 5,000 bottles of Petrus, Margaux and other rare vintages originally purchased during President Jacques Chirac's tenure at City Hall went under the hammer Oct. 20 and 21 in a sale ordered by the current mayor, Socialist Bertrand Delanoe. Each bottle bore a sticker to mark the provenance of vintages that Chirac once served to the likes of George H.W. Bush, Leonid Brezhnev and Pope John Paul II.
``This was about fetishism,'' said Claude Maratier, the independent expert on the sale organized by Paris auction house SVV Giafferi, which reported final figures today. ``The two wine merchants saw great potential in buying Paris city wines, in buying Chirac's wines. It is a teaser for their clients.''
The wines sold for more than nine times the 106,700 euros that City Hall paid for them in the years after Chirac became mayor in 1977. One bottle of 1990 Petrus fetched 3,900 euros at the sale, held at the city's public bank, Credit Municipal de Paris. That was more than triple the catalog estimate of 1,200 euros. All figures exclude a 14 percent auctioneer's fee. All the prices listed in the catalog were the expert's low estimates.
Burgundy Star
British merchant Williams left with the Burgundy star of the auction, purchasing a 1986 grand cru Romanee Conti, for 5,000 euros, a world record according to the database of French online wine broker idealwine.com.
``Origin is of essence for fine-wine sales,'' said Frederic Guyot du Repaire, a wine expert at Sotheby's in London in a phone interview. ``This was Chirac's wine.'' With the contents of entire cellars being sold with increasing frequency, it's important to know where a wine comes from and how it was kept, he said.
About half of the cellar, sold in 783 lots, was purchased by Williams of London's Antique Wine Company and Chinese wine merchant Liu Fei Fei, according to auction expert Maratier.
Bon Voyage
Liu, represented by his 23-year-old buyer Li Yang, outbid Williams on a 1989 Petrus, which he acquired for 4,000 euros and three bottles of 1996 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, for which he paid 2,100 euros. Li said Liu instructed him to keep bidding throughout the auction.
``This is a small gesture from Mr. Liu for President Chirac before his visit to China on Oct. 25,'' Li said at the auction. ``My boss said that this was a sign of welcome for Chirac, for a good journey.''
The last Sotheby's auction of 1989 Petrus fetched 1,400 pounds (2,088 euros) for one bottle from a case of 12, said Guyot du Repaire. ``This is a very strong price!'' he said of the amount Liu paid.
Bidders ranged from an unidentified West African billionaire represented by his trader to an anonymous wine merchant calling in bids from Monaco. French buyers were scarce, said auctioneer Dominique Giafferi before the second day of the auction opened.
``It was even too expensive for the Russians!'' he said.
French Buyers
French buyers have more limited budgets, said one French wine merchant at the auction, Jean-Francois Gallego from Libourne, near Bordeaux. ``There are fewer and fewer able to go on this global market,'' he said. ``Or maybe they have a more realistic sense of value for their wines.''
Because Mayor Delanoe didn't set minimum prices, every bottle on the 25-page catalog found a buyer. ``Everything had to be sold,'' Giafferi said.
The auction benefited from high 2005 Bordeaux futures prices, independent expert Maratier said. ``The Bordeaux futures set the tone, yet the Paris City cachet gave the added value,'' he said.
Maratier said he was disappointed that his beloved 1989 Chateau Haut-Brion didn't fetch more than 2,400 euros for three bottles and that a case of three 1990 Margaux got only 2,100 euros. Yet he was gratified, he said, that the sale had reinforced the country's viticultural prestige.
``It nourishes the glory of French wines,'' he said.
Proceeds from the sale will flow into Paris's 7 billion euros budget, said Nicolas Milosevic, head of protocol at City Hall. ``The auction shows we were right to think that putting a 5,000- euro bottle on the table was just impossible anymore, even in a city like Paris,'' he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net .