Wine

Trotter Wine Collection Goes To Christie’s; $1 Million+ Estimated

4000 bottles, kept in perfect storage conditions (as you could see for yourself in the back dining room, which was lined with a floor to ceiling wine refrigerator). That’s what Charlie Trotter’s had when it closed in August. And now it can be yours! The 4000 bottles from around the world (but heavy in top French labels), a collection started and largely shaped by legendary sommelier Larry Stone, will be auctioned off by Christie’s in two events this month. A live auction of the top wines in the collection will take place in New York on November 16th at the Rockefeller Plaza location of Christie’s; you can page through the catalog and salivate here. Online sales will begin November 20 and extend through December 4. For oenophiles, it’s a chance to own history— not just their own as Trotter’s patrons, but a piece of a collection that played a significant role in shaping American tastes in wine. As Christie’s Per Holmberg puts it in the introduction to the sale, “As the kitchen is to the chef, the wine list is the sommelier’s toolbox, and no sommelier in America found himself better equipped to change the way we drink than Larry Stone, M.S… a true collaboration between sommelier and chef with the goal of the best possible harmony for guests of the restaurant.” [Crain’s]

Trotter Wine Collection Goes To Christie’s; $1 Million+ Estimated