Rare stocking fillers from Bonhams

If you haven’t written to Santa yet, text him to get down to Bonhams this Thursday. The London auction house’s next sale has all you could possibly want for Christmas.

Rare 19th century Tokaji

“Absolutely. There’s Champagne, claret or Burgundy, and Port with bit of Tokaj thrown in,” said Richard Harvey MW, Bonham’s director of fine & rare wines. “And there’s a quite a lot of large formats including a nebuchadnezzar of d’Yquem 2005 for someone who’s got a lot of guests for their Christmas pudding.” The wine’s pre-sale estimate is £2,800 – 3,500.

The Tokaji Aszu comes from the cellar of the grandson of Sir Thomas Hohler who was British High Commissioner in Budapest in the 1920’s after the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire. The bottles from the late 1860s are believed to come from the imperial cellars of the Esterházy palace.

The sale also boasts some top-flight Bordeaux, including four and a half cases of Château Latour 1982 (est: £10,000 – 12,000 per case), some magnums of vintage Port and fifty lots of Champagne. Bonhmas reckons to outsell other auctioneers in vintage Champagne and claims demand is strong on both sides of the Atlantic and in Asia. Overseas buyers, particularly from the Far East, are expected to snap up half the auction. “They’ll be pushed to get their wine for Christmas,” Harvey admitted, “but they’ll have it for Chinese New Year.”

Château Mouton Rothschild 1986 (Est: £4,000-5,000)