1 bottle per lot
Details
COLLECTION DU DOCTEUR BAROLET
Albert Barolet, a doctor of medicine turned wine merchant, died in 1969 leaving his estate to 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 the late Harry Waugh, then wine director at Harvey's of Bristol, to see the cellar. He in turn, contacted Christie's and I met him in the courtyard of the vast Barolet mansion just outside the walls of Beaune to find a huge 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, lès 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 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 DRC, certainly well ahead of the leading négociant wines of the time. MB
Clos de la Roche--Vintage 1921
Côte de Nuits, Collection du Dr. Barolet, Henri de Villamont
Level: 5cm; bin soiled and torn label
Tasted 10/2001 Brimming clean red/burgundy colour, mature, but not much. Very fresh fragrant nose, rich currants, young; wonderful. Really clean palate, superb and refined texture; great purity of flavour; plums and sweet fig; rustic old and lingering. So long. Beyond imagination. Wow. DW
1 bottle per lot
Albert Barolet, a doctor of medicine turned wine merchant, died in 1969 leaving his estate to 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 the late Harry Waugh, then wine director at Harvey's of Bristol, to see the cellar. He in turn, contacted Christie's and I met him in the courtyard of the vast Barolet mansion just outside the walls of Beaune to find a huge 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, lès 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 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 DRC, certainly well ahead of the leading négociant wines of the time. MB
Clos de la Roche--Vintage 1921
Côte de Nuits, Collection du Dr. Barolet, Henri de Villamont
Level: 5cm; bin soiled and torn label
Tasted 10/2001 Brimming clean red/burgundy colour, mature, but not much. Very fresh fragrant nose, rich currants, young; wonderful. Really clean palate, superb and refined texture; great purity of flavour; plums and sweet fig; rustic old and lingering. So long. Beyond imagination. Wow. DW
1 bottle per lot