An Anonymous Musician’s Bonkers Collection of Wines Is Heading to Auction
Now’s your chance to own some pretty incredible wine with a rockin’ back story.
An anonymous musician and songwriter is auctioning off more than 300 bottles from his private collection, mostly focused on Riesling and Burgundy. The Bonhams sale, titled “The Melodic Cellar: A Musician’s Life in Wine,” will run online from Thursday through February 26.
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For more than 50 years, the California-based musician has amassed bottles from Bay Area retailers and auctions. He acquired most of the lots in the Bonhams sale during the 1970s and ’80s. The most desirable bottle on offer, according to the auction house, is a three-liter bottle of 1964 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti signed by the label’s co-directors, Aubert de Villaine and Marcelle “LaLou” Bize-Leroy. Expected to fetch up to $60,000, the bottle was originally gifted during a DRC dinner on the West Coast and then sold to the anonymous collector.
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti features prominently throughout the auction, as well. A three-liter bottle of Romanée-Conti from 1971 is estimated to achieve up to $120,000. And a six-liter bottle of Richebourg from the same year is set at $70,000 to $90,000.
As mentioned, the collector is also a big fan of Riesling, specifically from Germany, and his bottles of that varietal are also expected to fetch a pretty penny. Three bottles of Egon Muller Scharzhofberger TBA from 1976 are estimated at $12,000 to $16,000. Another three bottles of J.J. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr TBA from 1959 are also expected to hammer down in that price range. And six bottles of Schloss Vollrads TBA from 1959 are priced at $9,500 to $12,000.
“Passion is the key to the collector’s focus, both in music and wine,” Marie Keep, Bonhams’s head of wine and spirits for the Americas, said in a statement. “He began his career as a drummer then found different forms of expression through songwriting and singing. In wine, he followed an internal drive to amass a collection with character and cohesion, and one senses the man behind it—inquisitive, demanding, and generous.”
With such an astonishing collection of coveted labels, the anonymous musician’s identity is likely to be the subject of much speculation. Perhaps you can come to your own conclusions over a glass of the good stuff.
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