Auction house Bonham’s will run a Fine and Rare Wine sale in Hong Kong on 10 September 2021. A 15-litre bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild, 2000, otherwise known as the “Nebuchadnezzar”, is one of the highlights.
Coming from a legendary vintage, Château Mouton Rothschild 2000 has long been a highly sought-after bottle on the market. In Bonham’s upcoming sale, the Nebuchadnezzar carries an estimate of HK$1,000,000-1,300,000.
The commemorative bottle alone is a collector’s item. Each year since 1945, the Château Mouton Rothschild label has been illustrated with an artwork by a renowned painter, from Picasso and Chagall to Hockney and Warhol. For 2000, in an exceptional departure from this tradition, no painter was commissioned. Instead, the glass was adorned with an “Augsburg Ram”, paying tribute to a chased silver-gilt drinking vessel created around 1590 by Jakob Schenauer, a German master goldsmith.
In order to reproduce the refinement and lustre of the original work, the glassmaker B.S.N. – after four months of research – came up with a new technique for enamelling in relief. The scintillating texture of the Ram, which catches the light from different angles, called for the utmost precision of craftsman and a complex method for firing the gold and enamel.
Daniel Lam, Bonhams Director of Wine and Spirits Asia, commented: “It is a joy to present something so collectible and so iconic to the Asia market. The 2000 Château Mouton Rothschild Nebuchadnezzar is a perfect example of profound wine meeting remarkable bottle artistry. A bottle of this exceedingly large size means a relatively slower oxidation process, which is always a plus for serious collectors. Only a handful of examples of this vintage are believed to have been produced, and even fewer ever offered in the market in Asia.”
The sale features an array of fine wine from popular regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Italy. Other highlights of the sale include: 9 bottles of Duclot Bordeaux 2010 Collection (with an estimation HK$70,000-90,000), a bottle of Romanée-Conti, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1993 (with an estimation HK$110,000-140,000) and six bottles of Château Latour 1990.