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RetailKoch Brothers

Bill Koch Is Selling Off His Epic $15M Wine Cellar

By
Ben Geier
Ben Geier
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By
Ben Geier
Ben Geier
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 30, 2016, 11:39 AM ET
forsale
Art collector William Koch made the winning bid of $2 million Saturday night, June 25, 2011 on the tintype photograph of Billy the Kid. The 19th-century American frontier outlaw was photographed in either late 1879 or early 1880 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. It is the only authenticated photograph of the legendary gunman. Karl Gehring/ The Denver PostPhotograph by Getty Images

Bill Koch, the energy scion most and major Republican donor, is liquidating some of his “liquid” assets.

There are 20,000 bottles in Koch’s cellar, reports Bloomberg, and he’s looking to sell them for a total of $15 million at a Sotheby’s auction on May 19-21. This represents only around half of Koch’s wine collection, which he has been amassing for 40 years.

The wine collection will be broken up into 2,700 lots. One lot will contain 10 bottles of Mouton’s 1945 vintage, and could go for up to $120,000.

 

“That’s one of the most legendary wines,” said Connor Kriegel Sotheby’s head of wine sales. “It’s the wartime vintage, and it’s one of the greatest wines they’ve ever made. To see it on such a scale is pretty spectacular.”

Koch is a verifiable wine master. In the 1980s he spent $500,000 on four bottles that may have once been owned by Thomas Jefferson.

No word on which Republican candidate will benefit from this sale.

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