Lifestyle / Alcohol

Sotheby’s to auction off El Bulli wine cellar

Spanish chef Ferran Adrià will be selling off the contents of the wine cellar from his now-shuttered Catalan restaurant El Bulli next spring.

Dec 06, 2012 | By AFPRelaxnews

El Bulli restaurant

Spanish chef Ferran Adrià will be selling off the contents of the wine cellar from his now-shuttered restaurant El Bulli in two separate auctions to be held next year.

Wine lovers and gourmands will get a chance to grab a piece of El Bulli history next April, when Sotheby’s auctions off 8,807 bottles curated by the restaurant’s director Juli Soler and the sommelier team over the last 27 years of Adrià’s tenure.

The auction is expected to haul in an estimate of up to $1.6 million USD, all of which will go towards the El Bulli Foundation, a culinary think tank, and Bullipedia, a digital project Adrià has described as the culinary equivalent of Wikipedia.

Adrià closed El Bulli last summer at the height of its popularity  to turn it into a culinary research and development center, the El Bulli Foundation.

The eatery was named the world’s best restaurant five times by Restaurant magazine, while Adrià has widely been described as the world’s best chef.

The collection of wines to be sold by Sotheby’s include bottles from the classic wine regions such as Burgundy, Bordeaux, Sherry, Rioja, Cava and Champagne, some of which were labeled exclusively for the three Michelin-starred restaurant.

The highest value lot includes a trio of Domaine de la Romanée Conti, Romanée Conti 1990, which is estimated to bring in $32,500 to $47,500.

A lot of six magnums labeled exclusively for El Bulli — Lucien Le Moine Hospices de Beaune Corton Vergennes Cuvée Paul Chanson 2005 — is also expected to be highly sought after, fetching between $1,200 to $1,600.

Pockets don’t go that deep? More affordable lots include bottles priced as low as $50 for a 1999 Cuvée Prestige de Caroline.

Sotheby’s will be holding two auctions for El Bulli wines, the first on April 3, 2013 in Hong Kong, the second a few weeks later on April 26 in New York.


 
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