Taiwanese billionaire Pierre Chen, who owns more wine than could be drunk in a lifetime, is auctioning off 25,000 bottles. Some rare bottles are expected to fetch as much as $190,000 each.
According to Sotheby's the collection is expected to sell for about $50 million and the bottles are from the largest and most expensive wine collection ever to be offered at auction, CNN reported.
George Lacey, head of Sotheby's Wine for Asia says, Chen’s wine knowledge puts him in a “league of his own.” Lacey described the collection as “staggering both in volume and range.”
“There is currently more wine in his cellars than any one individual could ever hope to drink in a lifetime, but wine is for drinking,” he added. The bottles that will be put up for auction represent just 'a fraction' of his collection. Chen is currently ranked as Taiwan's 10th richest person by Forbes and the world's 515th richest person, with an estimated fortune of $5.5 billion.
The billionaire started collecting wines from Bordeaux in the 1970s and later expanded to the “then much-less-fashionable wines” from the Burgundy winemaking region. There are rare vintages from the storied La Tâche vineyard. Then there's a rare six-litre bottle of 1982 Château Pétrus, a Bourdeaux red, which could fetch up to $ 65,000. There are also white burgundies and Champagnes by Dom Pérignon and Krug.
