Despite being sold at many a top restaurant around the world, to be very honest I don’t think that our wines have ever appeared on the list at Spain’s famous El Bulli – and of course, now that it is closed, they never will. Our only rather tenuous connection is that their sommelier, Ferran Centelles, was a judge in last August’s Decanter tasting of Albariño, selecting Castro Martin as one of the very best, awarding us a fantastic 95/100 and classifying the wine as “outstanding”. Perhaps if the restaurant had remained open we might have been in with a chance of being added to the list….. we will never know.

El Bulli, the three star award-winning restaurant, headed for 27 years by the celebrated chef Ferran Adria, have now decided to auction the remnants of their extensive wine collection in two sales early next year. Sotherby’s will oversee the sale of some 8,800 bottles to be held in Hong Kong and New York during April of 2013.

Among the highlights of the sales will be 2,000 bottles of Spanish wine, including several vintages of Vega Sicilia ‘Unico’ (but regrettably no Castro Martin). There will also be full cases of Chateau Latour 2005 and three bottles of Domaine de la Romanee Conti, Romanee Conti 1990, which have a pre-sale estimate of $32,500 to $47,500. I suspect that these might be targeted at selected wealthy Chinese businessmen who will snap them up perhaps without really appreciating the true value of what they have bought. Whatever amount they pay, and however they decided to consume the wines (not as spritzers as has been rumoured in the past), the proceeds will at least go to a good cause – the financing of Sr. Ferran’s El Bulli Foundation which will eventually replace the restaurant, opening in 2014.

Despite being sold at many a top restaurant around the world, to be very honest I don’t think that our wines have ever appeared on the list at Spain’s famous El Bulli – and of course, now that it is closed, they never will. Our only rather tenuous connection is that their sommelier, Ferran Centelles, was a judge in last August’s Decanter tasting of Albariño, selecting Castro Martin as one of the very best, awarding us a fantastic 95/100 and classifying the wine as “outstanding”. Perhaps if the restaurant had remained open we might have been in with a chance of being added to the list….. we will never know.

El Bulli, the three star award-winning restaurant, headed for 27 years by the celebrated chef Ferran Adria, have now decided to auction the remnants of their extensive wine collection in two sales early next year. Sotherby’s will oversee the sale of some 8,800 bottles to be held in Hong Kong and New York during April of 2013.

Among the highlights of the sales will be 2,000 bottles of Spanish wine, including several vintages of Vega Sicilia ‘Unico’ (but regrettably no Castro Martin). There will also be full cases of Chateau Latour 2005 and three bottles of Domaine de la Romanee Conti, Romanee Conti 1990, which have a pre-sale estimate of $32,500 to $47,500. I suspect that these might be targeted at selected wealthy Chinese businessmen who will snap them up perhaps without really appreciating the true value of what they have bought. Whatever amount they pay, and however they decided to consume the wines (not as spritzers as has been rumoured in the past), the proceeds will at least go to a good cause – the financing of Sr. Ferran’s El Bulli Foundation which will eventually replace the restaurant, opening in 2014.