“Unique and exceptional” elBulli wine cellar to be auctioned at Sotheby’s in April
More than 8,000 bottles from the cellar of elBulli, Ferran Adrià’s renowned restaurant,, in Roses, will be sold in April in two auctions in Hong Kong and New York. The sale, organized by Sotheby’s, has an estimated price of between 1,1 and 1,6 million euros, and comes after Adrià decided to close the restaurant last year to focus on his foundation. The three-Michelin-star elBulli was considered to be the best restaurant in the world for five years in a row and was one of the most iconic places in the Catalan Costa Brava for almost three decades.
Roses (ACN).- The wine cellar of what it once was the best restaurant in the world is up for auction, in a sale that will delight wine lovers and gastronomic sybarites alike. In April, Sotheby’s is going to sell up to 8,807 wine bottles that Catalan chef Ferran Adrià and his partner Juli Soler collected over the 27 years in which the renowned elBulli was up and running. The restaurant in the coastal town of Roses, in the Costa Brava, was considered by many to be the best in the world. Adrià surprised the world by announcing his intention to close the three-Michelin-star restaurant to create the ‘BulliFoundation’, a creativity centre that will open its doors in 2014. Proceeds from the sale of the wine cellar will go straight to the foundation.
The first wine sale will be on April the 3rd in Hong Kong, and the second on April the 26th in New York. The wine cellar has an estimated price of between 1,1 and 1,6 million euros. The collection, described by Adrià as “unique and exceptional”, includes bottles that were especially designed for elBulli. Some of the highlights of the sale include 2,000 bottles of Spanish wine, with an estimated price of between $200.000 and $300.000. Among them, 100 bottles from six different vintages (from 1987 to 1996) of Vegas Sicilia ‘Unico’, and 157 bottles of Pingus.
The elBulli wine cellar was developed by the restaurant director Juli Soler and his team of sommeliers over 27 years. According to Ferran Adrià, the wine collection is “very personal and special” but will help to boost the project, the BulliFoundation. “Due to the transformation of elBulli from a restaurant to a foundation we decided that this very special and personal collection should be used to make a founding contribution to help ensure the successful launch of the BulliFoundation”, said Adrià in a press release.
The head of the International Wine Department at Sotheby’s, Serena Sutcliffe, said that the auctions “will present collectors all over the world with an opportunity to acquire wines from his restaurant, some of which were labeled exclusively for the three-Michelin-star establishment”.