2011 a good year for French wine

Hong Kong - Fifty-five bottles of rare French wine have sold for $813,000 (about R6.5-million), the highest price for any single lot of wine sold worldwide in 2011, an auction house said on Sunday.

The price was paid for a collection of bottles of every vintage of DRC Romanee Conti from 1952 to 1957 at a two-day auction in Hong Kong of rare wine by auction house Acker Merrall and Condit.

A statement from the auction house on Sunday said the collection was bought by an unidentified Chinese telephone bidder.

The lot was among 800 sold on December 8 and 10 in an auction that fetched a total of 9.09 million US dollars, bringing the auction house's Hong Kong sales for 2011 to a total of 69 million US dollars.

Hong Kong, which removed all duty from wine sales in 2008, last year sold more wine at auction than New York and London combined, much of it to wealthy collectors from mainland China. - Sapa-dpa