Bonhams Holds 1st Hong Kong Wine Auction for a Decade in Bunker

An underground bunker used by the British army to store explosives in Hong Kong's 1941 fight against invading Japanese troops will witness another battle tomorrow: for fine Burgundies and first-growth Bordeaux.

About 180 bidders are expected to pack the concrete vault, 50 feet (15 meters) below the surface, to bid for 246 lots Bonhams is offering in the city's first wine auction in a decade. The sale -- featuring a 1955 Bordeaux and bottles of California's Screaming Eagle cabernet -- is estimated to fetch more than $1.5 million, the auction house said.

"This auction is more meaningful than its monetary value suggests," said George Tong, a private collector, who began investing in wine four years ago and stores 1,000 bottles in Hong Kong and 5,000 bottles in the U.K. "If the response is good, bigger wine auctions would surely follow in Hong Kong."

More sales would help Hong Kong's plans to become Asia's wine-trading center. In February, the government abolished duties on the drink, lowering the costs of trading and storing bottles in Hong Kong. The city aims to encourage more Asian collectors to switch from current trading centers like the U.K.

The top lots at Bonhams's auction include a double magnum Chateau La Mission Haut Brion 1955, with a high estimate of $26,000, and a magnum Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 1992, with a top estimate of $35,000, according to Bonhams.

Hong Kong's wine collectors control 1 million cases of fine wine --bottles that cost more than HK$1,000 ($128) each -- quarter of the world's total, according to Crown Wine Cellars, Bonhams's partner in the Hong Kong auction. Like Tong, 44, most Asian collectors store their supplies in the U.K. where an established network of logistics companies and brokers allows them to trade, store and move wine more cheaply.

Unload Inventory

"he problem with Hong Kong is it doesn't have an active secondary market for trading wine,"said Tong. "f the market here takes off and it becomes easier to unload my inventory, as my U.K. broker puts it, I may move more bottles here."

New York's Acker Merrall & Condit Co. will hold a Hong Kong auction of 1,000 lots of wines, worth about $6 million, on May 31.

Bonhams received 600 seat requests for the auction, about 90 percent from locals, said Carson Chan, Bonhams's Hong Kong-based managing director. Chan said Bonhams has had to reject most requests because the Unesco World Heritage site, now Crown Wine Cellars' facility, couldn't accommodate so many people.

Chan, 39, said some of the Hong Kong bidders might represent mainland Chinese buyers, which may account for as much as 40 percent of total purchases.