An American industrialist’s wine collection is being sold as “one of the greatest single-owner wine collections ever to come to market” next month. The series of auctions is expected to raise a minimum of $15 million.
The sale of the William I Koch (better known as Bill Koch) collection at Christie’s will take three days and feature 1,500 lots.
Christie’s said: “A once-in-a-generation sale, the auction will feature a highly curated selection of rare bottlings from the world’s most revered wine estates, in legendary vintages, including more than 750 extraordinary large-format bottles.”
Mr Koch’s home in Palm Beach, where many of his wines were stored.
Bill Koch’s family are one the wealthiest in American history. They own Koch Inc, a huge business largely built on petrol.
Bill, who is 85, left the company in 1980, founded his own energy business and battled his brothers in court for two decades.
Mr Koch is also famous as a sailor (his boat won the 1992 Americas Cup), political donor, and art collector.
These collections are the result of a lifelong obsession with wine, kept in cellars in Palm Beach, Cape Cod, and Aspen.
Christie’s say that most of the wines are Bordeaux and Burgundy vintages and there are significant amounts of Champagne, Rhone, Italian and New World wines too.
The highest-value items are likely to be 750 large-format bottles, including over 45 Jeroboams (3-litre bottles) and Methuselahs (6 litres) of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, a Burgundy estate that traces its roots back to a 13th-century abbey vineyard.
Traditional methods still in use at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, probably the world’s greatest vineyard.
Mr Koch told Christie’s: “I have often wondered what deeply attracts me to outstanding wine, gourmet food, incredible art, music, and camaraderie. Wine brings it all together. Winemaking is both farming and art. To me, it is simple prairie philosophy, you can taste the love, passion, hard work, dedication, teamwork, and pride that went into the making of a great wine.”
The $15 million estimate is the lowest expected total value for this sale, and excludes fees.
In 2023, Sotheby’s realised $16.8 million in the first part of its sale of the collection of Pierre Chen, whose complete collection was expected to realise around $50 million in total.
Mr Chen, a Taiwanese electronics billionaire, had a collection of 25,000 bottles, the most valuable single items coming in around $249,000.
The highest value wine ever sold was a Romanée-Conti 1945 that realised $558,000 in 2018. The bottle’s incredible rarity is largely because of the effects of World War II on production.
