Adam Bilbey: ‘You’ve got to give people a compelling reason’ to bid
Provenance remains the top driver of wine and spirits auctions, according to a new report by Christie’s, with collectors making “careful and considered” choices as the market recovers. Global head of wine and spirits Adam Bilbey talks to Arabella Mileham about recent successes and what is driving sales.
“I sound like a broken record, as I probably said this exactly the same time last year, but as the market picks up again, people really are paying a premium [for provenance],” Bilbey told the drinks business in a zoom call last week.
This isn’t something confined to wine and spirits, and Bilbey points to the “incredible” single owner sale last week of one of America’s great music memorabilia collectors, which saw the largest and most comprehensive sale of guitars ever offered at auction raise US$21,490,750. “What that is showing is that actually worldwide, people are just willing to spend when there is something really special,” he explains.
Within the wine and spirits category, this has been demonstrated by the strength of single-owner and direct‑from‑Domaine offerings, as outlined by the newly released Christies Luxury – 2025 Key Trends & 2026 Outlook report.
“People put a value on these because of the paper trail,” Bilbey told db, “Knowing where something has come from, knowing where someone’s recruiting [wines from], how it’s been stored – all the salient points.”
He pointed to the US$28.8 million result for the Cellar of William I. Koch: The Great American Collector auction in June, to prove his point, a collector he previously described as a “one-of-a-kind icon in the world of wine, whose influence on the story of fine wine collecting is both profound and enduring”, as well as Joseph Lau and the Bouchard Père & Fils cellar sale in November. More recently, last week saw two very rare whisky casks (#6195 and #888) from the Karuizawa distillery, which together achieved an eye-watering £4.25 million.
“It’s not often that we offer lots that are such high value… and with such high value things, you’re always a little bit nervous, but it was a great result in the end,” he smiled. As Bilbey notes, not only is it rare for full casks of Karuizawa to be offered at auction, but these casks came from the private collection of renowned whisky expert and collector, Sukhinder Singh.
“The story of Sukhinder Singh is one of the great stories of the drinks industry, full stop. He is an incredible pioneer and entrepreneur, so I think people put a value on that,” Bilbey notes. The success of the sale has “given us food for thought on what direction we go in with the spirits,” he admitted. Although Christie’s is not “likely to start doing cask sales”, it raises the potential to focus on spirits and there are already important initiatives happening in Europe and the US in the second half of the year to grow its footprint and add “another string to our bow in the US”.
Data shows momentum
Although by no means Christie’s only focus (“we’re not just going to do single owner sales, that’s never going to be [the plan]”) single-owner sales “drive people to come to us and to talk to us,” Bilbey notes. The momentum Christie’s has built in the secondary market in the second half of last year, and the success of these types of sales, makes “people are a little more confident” to do so, he said.
“We’ve got a track record over the last three or four years… and the data that shows that we sell things,” he added. Single owner sell-through rates have gone up as well as the hammer to low ratio. “So the data is telling you that the market is moving in the right direction.”
This isn’t only true of Christie’s – this week Sotheby’s released its 2025 results, which saw global wine and spirits sales rise 12% to US$127.5 million, noting the “standout moments and stellar results” from its own single-owner sales. But as Bilbey points out, “we like watching our competitors doing well as well, because it’s good for the market. Usually if it’s just one person’s doing well, it’s an outlier, and that’s not a true reflection of the market. But when everybody’s doing well… that is good for everybody.”
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(Well maybe not quite everybody, as the success of the Karuizawa casks left one of Bilbey’s neighbours somewhat disgruntled. Although the auction took place in Christie’s London sale room in the afternoon, Bilbey was in Hong Kong, speaking on the phone to potential bidders, and when the hammer came down sometime around 10pm local time, he was cheering so hard that a sleeping neighbour subsequently complained about the noise to the front lobby).
Healthy global market
As the Karuizawa sale proved, demand has been global. The London sale saw the strongest interest come from Asia. “It was mainly Asian bidding, but we did have some interest parties in the US and one in the UK as well,” he noted. There has recently been a “critical mass” of bidding from mainland China, but bidding that is “more careful and considered”.
“You’re not getting the crazy, blanket bids that you might have seen five or ten years ago, which is no bad thing,” he says. “It is a healthier market.”
Buyers are also increasingly comfortable purchasing across multiple sale sites, regardless of geography, the report found, and a younger collector base has emerged. This is particuarly notably in Asia, where younger buyers are entering the category “with curiosity and a desire to learn”. They are also increasingly going beyond the top labels, the luxury report noted.
The US market has also proved very strong following the relaunch in New York last year. “We’ve been incredibly lucky with the auctions that we’ve had over the last 12 months,” Bilbey said, pointing to the exciting pipeline of auctions coming up this year. This includes a West Coast collection comprising iconic – “with a capital I” – California wines and mature Bordeaux that will be sold in New York in June.
Mature Bordeaux
One of the key driver in 2025 was the renewed demand for mature Bordeaux. “If we say mature Bordeaux, we think the ’80s, ’70s and ’60s but we’re talking about the early 2000s now, even the ’05,” Bilbey points out. Collectors are seeing strong value opportunities there compared to the more recent vintages of Bordeaux, and especially compared to recent Burgundy vintages. “For the price of a Bourgogne Rouge or a Villages wine from a half-decent Burgundy producer, the chances are that you’d be able to get a second growth Bordeaux with about 15 years of age,” Bilbey notes. “I just think people are going to come back to that, to where there is still a surplus of stock.”
Bidders were also prepared to pay a premium for “exceptional scarcity” the report noted, as demonstrated by some of the prices reached for historic wines from the Bouchard Père & Fils cellar sale in November.
“The data also tells us that provenance, story, curation and giving people a reason to collect, are key,” Bilbey explains. “People are not going to spend their money for no reason – you’ve got to give the people a compelling reason why they should bid above market.”
However, he ends with a warning that one cannot afford to be complacent. “If people think that sending Excel spreadsheets or a list of wines now for private clients is the way to grow their business, they probably won’t be in the business for that long.”
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