A brief look at the past week in wine...

US wine exports hit 461m litres in volume last year, with about 90% of the totals accounted for by wines from California, said the state’s Wine Institute.
The 28 states of the European Union led the way with imports totalling $622m, ahead of Canada on $461m, Hong Kong ($97m), Japan ($96m) and China ($56m). Exports of US and California wine to the UK increased by 28% in value versus 2014. However, some in the UK wine trade believe
Linsey Gallagher, the Wine Institute’s vice president international marketing, said more than 170 California wineries were now exporting to 138 countries. She added: ‘California wine exports have increased 91% by value in the last decade and we’re seeing a “premiumisation” trend, with dollar sales outpacing volume growth. 

The 3,000 bottle, private cellar of Pierre Bergé, the former managing director of Maison Yves Saint Laurent who was also the life partner of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, contains a host of old vintages from top French producers and will be up for auction on 10 March atMaison Drouot.
A bottle of Heidsieck Monopole ‘Goût Américain’ (‘American Taste’) Champagne from 1907 is expected to top the sale, with an estimate of €5,000. Among the other highlights are a rare Jeroboam of Château Climens 1921, a bottle of Château Lafite-Rothschild 1895, three bottles of Château Haut-Brion 1945, six bottles of Château Ausone 1937 and two bottles of Bollinger RD 1961.
The Burgundy region will be represented by 12 bottles of Bonne Mares Comte de Vogüe 1989, nineteen bottles of Domaine de la Romanée Conti (DRC) Echézeaux 1990, two bottles of DRC Grands Echézeaux 1961, eleven bottles of DRC Richebourg 1989, and twelve bottles of DRC La Tâche 1996.
Also from Bordeaux, the cellar contains eight bottles of Ausone 1959, three magnums of Haut-Brion 1953 and a double magnum of Haut-Brion 1959, six bottles of Latour 1959 and two jeroboams of Mouton-Rothschild, from 1975 and 1978.
Champagne will be notably represented by two bottles of Bollinger RD 1961 (disgorged on 15 April 1969), two magnums of Dom Pérignon 1975, and five bottles of Taittinger Comtes de Champagne 1961.
The Heisdsieck Monopole 1907 comes from a shipwreck. In 1916, Heidsieck Monopole shipped 3,000 bottles to the Imperial Russian Army, aboard the schooner Jönköping. But, on 3 November 1916, the Jönköping was attacked and sunk by a German submarine. In July 1998, at the eastern point of the Baltic Sea, a Swedish submarine expedition found the wreck of the Jönköping at a depth of 300 ft and succeeded in salvaging 2,400 bottles. 

Burgundy estate Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) topped the annual Sotheby’s Wine Ranking for the third year in a row, with more than US$10m-worth of wine sold during the year. The top 10 list, now in its third year, calculates fine wine sales from Sotheby’s auctions and retail operations, with the aim of creating a ‘high-level snapshot’ of global demand for fine wine.
Sotheby’s auction receipts totalled $60.4m in 2015, down 7.5% on the year before despite a number of high-profile, single owner auctions and direct from the winery sales.
Burgundy was the big winner last year, accounting for 40% of Sotheby’s total sales (up from 26%), not far behind Bordeaux’s share of 46% (down from 62%). DRC alone accounted for 17% of the company’s worldwide sales.
Burgundy en primeur resultsAn auction of wines direct from Château Mouton Rothschild in January last year helped elevate Mouton to second place on the list, overtaking Pétrus, Château Lafite Rothschild and Château Latour with total sales of $6.1m – still some distance behind DRC at $10.3m.
Another sale of wines direct from Château Margaux lifted the property into fourth spot, despite a slight fall in total sales.
But of the six Bordeaux properties in the top 10, only Mouton recorded an increase in sales last year, in contrast to leading Burgundy domaines DRC (up 16%), Armand Rousseau (up 88%) and Georges Roumier (up 113%).
Asian buyers accounted for 52% of sales (down slightly from 55% last year), compared to 30% from North America (24% in 2014), 15% from Europe (18% in 2014) and 3% from Latin America (2% in 2014).
The top-grossing lot of the year was a six-bottle case of DRC 1990, which fetched $158,000 in Hong Kong. 

Cheers!