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4 bottles per lot
Details
COLLECTION DU DR BAROLET
Albert Barolet, a doctor of medicine turned wine merchant, died in 1969 leaving his estate to his two elderly sisters. The business was started in the early part of the 20th century by Mr. Arthur Barolet, Albert's father. Selected wines were purchased from individual growers which were delivered en barrique to the cellar in Beaune for élévage and subsequent bottling and maturation prior to sale under the Barolet name to an extensive list of private customers, mainly in Belgium and Holland.
In the early autumn of 1969 a local wine broker took Harry Waugh, then wine director of Harvey's of Bristol, to see the cellar. He in turn, contacted Christie's and I met him in the courtyard of the large Barolet mansion just outside the walls of Beaune to find a vast stock, many thousands of bottles of wine binned, unlabelled, heavily covered with white cellar mould, with vintages back to 1911. The problem was how to market them.
A Swiss firm, Henri de Villamont, with cellars in Savigny-lés-Beaune, acquired title and stocks and agreed to a major sale at Christie's to establish prices. Before doing so, Mr. Waugh and I tasted a range of wines, brought up from the two-tier underground cellar, later showing wide selections at the pre-sale tastings in Paris, Geneva and London. The sale itself, the wines offered ex-cellars Beaune, was an outstanding success, for the first time achieving prices approaching those of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, certainly well ahead of the leading négociant wines of the time. MB
Santenay--Vintage 1911
Côte de Beaune, Collection du Dr. Barolet
Levels: two 2.0cm, one 3.0cm, one 4.0cm; all with soiled labels and corroded capsules
This was the oldest vintage in the extraordinary, indeed unprecedented, sale of just short of 1000 cases - a tiny fraction of the total stock - from the cellars of the late Dr. Albert Barolet, at Christie's in December 1969. MB
4 bottles per lot
Albert Barolet, a doctor of medicine turned wine merchant, died in 1969 leaving his estate to his two elderly sisters. The business was started in the early part of the 20th century by Mr. Arthur Barolet, Albert's father. Selected wines were purchased from individual growers which were delivered en barrique to the cellar in Beaune for élévage and subsequent bottling and maturation prior to sale under the Barolet name to an extensive list of private customers, mainly in Belgium and Holland.
In the early autumn of 1969 a local wine broker took Harry Waugh, then wine director of Harvey's of Bristol, to see the cellar. He in turn, contacted Christie's and I met him in the courtyard of the large Barolet mansion just outside the walls of Beaune to find a vast stock, many thousands of bottles of wine binned, unlabelled, heavily covered with white cellar mould, with vintages back to 1911. The problem was how to market them.
A Swiss firm, Henri de Villamont, with cellars in Savigny-lés-Beaune, acquired title and stocks and agreed to a major sale at Christie's to establish prices. Before doing so, Mr. Waugh and I tasted a range of wines, brought up from the two-tier underground cellar, later showing wide selections at the pre-sale tastings in Paris, Geneva and London. The sale itself, the wines offered ex-cellars Beaune, was an outstanding success, for the first time achieving prices approaching those of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, certainly well ahead of the leading négociant wines of the time. MB
Santenay--Vintage 1911
Côte de Beaune, Collection du Dr. Barolet
Levels: two 2.0cm, one 3.0cm, one 4.0cm; all with soiled labels and corroded capsules
This was the oldest vintage in the extraordinary, indeed unprecedented, sale of just short of 1000 cases - a tiny fraction of the total stock - from the cellars of the late Dr. Albert Barolet, at Christie's in December 1969. MB
4 bottles per lot