TWO bottles of wine found among a stash hidden from the Germans during the Occupation sold for £1,150 at auction yesterday.
A Bonhams sale which featured a large selection of rare wines from Bucktrout’s reached a total of £50,000.
Two 1934 bottles of Chateau d’Yqeum and three of Chateau Haut-Brion from 1945 alone reached over £1,000.
The wines were hidden in the former Bucktrout’s High Street shop in a storeroom, which was blocked up with junk.
These had been brought over by wine tasters from France as they were of particularly good standard.
After the war the wines were dug out and put on display in the director’s cellar.
When Bucktrout’s was purchased by the Liberation Group and moved to new premises, the wines were put up for auction as there was nowhere to display them properly.
The sale of the wines had exceeded expectations with them originally anticipated to reach around £40,000.
‘It went very well,’ said Richard Harvey, European head of wine at Bonhams.
‘It totalled about £50,000 and we got some pretty good prices for some of the older wines.
‘Some of them sold for the top prices and some went over the top. It was an exciting sale.’
Mr Harvey said there had been a full room with a wide variety of bidders from Japan, USA and Europe. He was unsure whether any of the bottles would be coming back home.
‘It would have been nice to think that some would have gone back to Guernsey.’
Included in the sale was a Harvey’s 1897 Special Quality Port. This was the oldest of the wines and was expected to sell for £150 but reached £460, along with another port.
A dozen bottles of Chateau Ausone 1928 fetched £864 and a Pellison Fine Champagne 1878 and Martell 1906 reached £744.
Three bottles of Chateau Haut-Brion 1945 sold for £1,320 and five bottles of Dom Perignon 1971 made £1,200.
n For a full listing visitwww.bonhams.com/wine.
Article posted on 18th March, 2009 - 11.30am
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