Domaine Romanee Conti 1990, which commanded more than $20,000 a bottle just year ago, can now be had for less than $13,000 – a 35 percent drop.

    “The price of wine, particularly at the higher end, has gone througha two-year period of unprecedented increases.  Not surprisingly, we now see a period of price adjustments, as reflected in the results of tonight’s sale,” Jamie Ritchie, head of Sotheby’s Wines North America said after the Oct. 28^th sale.

     Auction houses, no matter what they’re auctioning, tout their sell through – the percentage of lots sold. In the spring, Christies, Sotheby’s, Zachy’s, Hart Davis Hart all boasted sell throughs of more than 90 percent.

     As recently as the September 19-20 Hart Davis Hart auction of a single collector - known as the Fox Cellar – there was a 100 percent sell through and the total from the sale of1,746 lots of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, Petrus, and DRC was almost  $11.2 million, topping the high end of the original estimates by almost $1 million. It may well have been the highwater mark for wine auctions.

     And it took place the same week that the Dow Jones Industrial Average roller-coastered more than1,000 points to close at 11,388 and a temporary ban on shorting stock in about 800 financial companies went into effect.

    Six weeks and several auctions later, the sell-through seems to have dropped to an average of 79 percent, a four-case lot of DRC 1990 was left unsold because the reserve price was not met and the Liv-ex 100, the wine industry’s leading benchmark, dropped 3.7 percent to 253 at the end of September from a high of 262.71 just set in August. Oh and the Dow, it closed at 9,325 on Oct. 31, down almost 20 percent since September 19.

    Charles Curtis, head of Christie’s North American Wine Sales, said after the Oct. 25^thauction there was “a softening of some prices, demonstrating that current economic conditions have made for a buyer’s market.”

     And on November 1, Hart, Davis, Hart held a sale in Chicago where the estimates listed in its catalogue were lower than those inthe Fox Cellar auction held six weeks ago.

     “It’s a bidder’s  market. There’s great opportunity,” said Paul Hart. Asked if the market for collectible wine has peaked, he replied,  “The thing about collectors…. Is that there is a passion. It’s not like trading a 100 shares of IBM. Someone who buys 86 cases of Lafite more likely wants to drink it. There’s a level of passion that makes this market a little different.”