A case of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1959 was the top lot in Bonhams sale of Fine & Rare Wines on 13 May, making £25,300 against a pre-sale estimate of £12,000-16,000. A dozen bottles of the same property’s unheralded 1950 vintage made £13,800, three times its estimate. These cases both came from the private cellar of the Morrison family, former owners of Morrison Bowmore Distillers, as did a case of six magnums of Chateau Latour 1959 which sold for £19,550, against a pre-sale estimate of £12,000-14,000.

The sale made a total of £563,673 with 90% selling by lot and 96% by value.

Mature Champagne is now very highly sought and two cases of the extremely rare Krug Crémant Brut, from the same cellar, reached nearly two and a half times the high estimate at £2,760 each, whilst a magnum of Dom Perignon 1961, specially disgorged for the Royal Wedding in 1980 went for £2,300, more than double the high estimate.

Chateau Lafite Rothschild continues to achieve higher prices every sale – a bottle of the 1982 going for almost double its high estimate at £2,530 and cases of the 1986 and 1996 vintages fetching £14,950 and £12,650 per dozen respectively. The chateau’s second wine, Carruades de Lafite, is equally sought after, with a case of the 1998 selling at £2,300.

A collection of ten bottles, formerly belonging to Sir Oswald Mosley, from the cellar of Lismore Castle in Ireland, made over £2,000 and a private Continental cellar of Le Pin, the tiny Pomerol vineyard, saw three magnums of the 1998 vintage make £9,430 and six magnums of 1996 fetched £11,673.

A fine collection of Italian wines was another feature of the sale with over 100 lots on offer, almost all of which sold. A further particularly successful area was vintage Madeira where a series of lots of Boal 1827 and Malmsey 1830 from the cellars of Quinto do Serrado sold between £580-£680 per bottle, double the high estimate. More bottles of these wines will be featured in our next sale on 1 July.

A special feature of the July sale will be Tokaji, the historic sweet wine of Hungary. There will be a fascinating tasting, tutored by the growers themselves, in New Bond Street on 24 June. For more details and information on the Tokaji tasting please contact the Department on wine@bonhams.com