There is a lot of excitement in the wine auction arena this fall, but one announcement in particular caught our attention: Sotheby’s is staging a sale of wine from Château La Mission Haut-Brion featuring 40 vintages under the ownership of Domaine Clarence Dillon plus wines from La Mission dating back to 1920. Set to take place in London on November 7, the auction also includes bottles from the renowned Saint-Émilion Grand Cru estate Château Quintus, which has been owned by Domaine Clarence Dillon since 2011.
One of the most appealing aspects of this offering is that the bottles are coming directly from the wineries’ cellars. “When we look at provenance, ex-chateau sits right at the top of the list in terms of desirability,” says Nick Pegna, Sotheby’s global head of wine and spirits. “The wines are lying where they were made, have never moved, and come with a guarantee of quality from the estate. Quality of provenance does not get any better than this.”
Bordeaux lovers will be thrilled as they peruse the close to 700 lots available, which have a combined value in excess of $1.3 million. The sale includes all the different wines produced at the chateau over the past 100 years, including Châteaux Laville Haut-Brion, La Tour Haut-Brion, and La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion. The wines of La Mission Haut-Brion have long performed well at auction and the values of its older vintages tend to increase. “They are sold on tight allocation at release, so they tend to appreciate as mature bottles start to be consumed,” Pegna says. Bottles of Quintus’s highly regarded second wine, Le Dragon de Quintus, are up for sale as well.
Château La Mission Haut-Brion
La Mission Haut-Brion
There are 48 half bottles, 3,139 standard bottles, 877 magnums, 140 double magnums, four Jeraboams, 90 Imperials, and 24 Salamanzars that will hit the block. The auction is divided into two sections, the Clarence Dillon Era (1983 to 2022), with 646 lots, and the Pre-Clarence Dillon Era (lots 647-699). Among the highlights are two exciting experiences: the first is an opportunity to visit Châteaux La Mission Haut-Brion and Quintus, and the second is a dinner at the Michelin two-starred restaurant Le Clarence in Paris along with a tasting in La Cave du Château, the restaurant’s wine shop. A rare case featuring nine wines from the domaine’s three estates—including Château Haut-Brion—from the exceptional 2016 vintage is filled with one standard bottle each of each winery’s first and second wine plus three magnums of the first wine from each estate.
Prince Robert of Luxembourg, chairman and CEO of Domaine Clarence Dillon, tells Robb Report that the bottles from the 1983 vintage of La Mission Haut-Brion hold special significance to him, as this was the first vintage produced by their team under the ownership of the Dillon family. When his mother, Joan Dillon, Duchess of Mouchy, and father, Prince Charles of Luxembourg signed the purchase agreement for the estate in 1983, they arranged for the young prince to be excused from boarding school in England to attend the signing. The great-grandson of American financier Clarence Dillon, who acquired Château Haut-Brion in 1935, Prince Robert has worked with his family’s wine holdings since 1993.
“Important collectors are always thrilled to receive direct access to our limited library of wines,” Prince Robert says, reiterating the point that Pegna made about provenance. “These have rested undisturbed in our cellars since the day that they were bottled.” He also says that this is the first time that certain rare, limited-edition large-format bottles will be featured at auction and that as far as he knows it is only the second time that ex-chateau bottles of Château Quintus have been on the block. Although it can be difficult to part with a piece of one’s family legacy, Prince Robert is fully aware that wine is made to be enjoyed, not hidden away in the cellar of a chateau.
