Planning ahead for a party in 2016? The perfect tipple to toast the centenary of the Easter Rising could be an “ultra-rare” 1916 vintage French Bordeaux. Sotheby’s has announced the sale of just two bottles of Château Mouton Rothschild 1916 in its evening wine auction later this month. But the price – a top estimate of $10,000 (€8,390) for the pair – is likely to prove unpalatable to a cash-strapped Irish government.
The auction takes place in Hong Kong, an acknowledgement of south-east Asia's dominance of the market for vintage wines, where last year Sotheby's achieved a world auction record for the most expensive wine lot when 114 bottles of Romanée-Conti sold for $1.7 million or €1,425 per glass. See sothebys.com. Michael Parsons
