Three Questions with John Hawkesby
In the current Fine Wines & Whiskies Online Auction we are offering a sampler of the astonishing cellar of John Hawkesby, MNZM - a well known New Zealand broadcaster and wine critic. We caught up with Hawkesby to discuss his collection and some of the highlights from this initial sale.
Webb’s: How did you start in the world of wine and collecting?
John Hawkesby: It was in the mid 1980s, I was travelling in Hawke's Bay and went to Te Mata Estate for a tasting and I had a wine called Coleraine which, from memory, was $29 a bottle. That's a wine that turned my head. So I started to become very interested in wine and then I fell in love with French Burgundy and Bordeaux and started seriously collecting.
What would you say is the connecting thread within the collection that you are presenting at Webb’s?
I always looked for good value wines from great vintages. At least 90% of the Burgundies in my collection were bought directly from Peter Maude who is very well connected with great producers. The other 10% were probably bought from Jean-Christophe and Scott at M V. So they all came from negociants and then went straight into my temperature-controlled cellar on Waiheke Island where they've been laying flat in a dark place at the right temperature for a couple of decades.
A lot of them I drank, of course. So, I've tried all the wines that I'm putting into the auction and I’ve loved them all, but my cardiologist says it is time to let them go.
In terms of Burgundy I looked for good producers that came with a good reputation and whose primary aim was consistency. I tended to buy more in the ‘exceptional vintages’ rather than the ‘okay’ vintages. In terms of Bordeaux, I particularly like the wines of Saint-Émilion. With Bordeaux wines, I collected those that were reasonably affordable — not necessarily cheap, but they may have been second growth, third growth or even fourth growth and which really snuck in under the radar and, in a blind tasting, could give Haut-Brion or Mouton Rothschild a run for its money.
We are currently selling, online, a sampler of your collection, which will be followed by a live auction on 29 May. Point us to some of the hidden gems of this sale, anything in terms of vintage or producer that might not be necessarily that well known.
When it comes to Burgundy's Domaine de la Vougeraie is pretty good. I'm a big fan of Chateau Montrose and also Lynch Bages. This is a wine that Jean-Christophe put me onto very early in my wine buying experience. He said it was the best value Bordeaux wine going at the time and I think he's right. It is a good vintage and the excellence in taste and sensation of the first growths but nowhere near first growth price so… that's a great buy.
A sampler from John Hawkesby’s collection is being sold via online auction from 26 April to 1 May via this link. The rest of his collection will be sold via a live auction on 29 May.
