“The market has changed radically,” says Allen Meadows, editor of Burghound, a leading international publication tracking Burgundy wine, who believes that Kurniawan’s heavy buying has been a significant factor. At a recent auction, a bottle sold for $10,337, according to Wine Market Journal. One example: At the start of 2001, bottles of Bordeaux’s famed 1945 Mouton Rothschild, on average, sold for $3,759. The rise has been much steeper for the rare wines Kurniawan favors. Last year, the dollar value of the old wine market rose 31%, with a total of $166 million spent at auction worldwide. The average price of a bottle of wine sold at auction has increased 62% from the first quarter of 2001 through the end of the third quarter of 2006, according to Wine Market Journal, an online service that tracks wine auctions around the world. As he stepped up his acquisitions in 2004, a dozen other ultra-rich buyers emerged to compete with him for the best bottles. Since he started buying, prices for rare wine have skyrocketed. Kurniawan’s outsize taste for old wine, however, has changed the market, say auction house insiders. His father, he says, gave him an Indonesian surname that is different from the family’s Chinese name to allow him to maintain his autonomy. He won’t disclose the identify of his family or the source of their fortune. Wine is something you open and you share.”Ī slight man whose unconscious self-confidence is the only tip-off that he’s old enough to drink, Kurniawan would rather the world didn’t know much about him. “People who know me and come to see my cellar know that they can drink whatever they want.
![racr 2006 rudy storb racr 2006 rudy storb](https://photos.offerup.com/8yeOjIGa3R4YQubskTNFKievq6Y=/600x800/e26c/e26c0c8622cb4ffea9037cb988caecf8.jpg)
Now 30, he gels his straight black hair off his soft-featured face. I’m a drinker,” Kurniawan says, his eyes smiling behind black-framed glasses sporting the silver dagger insignia of rocker-chic jeweler Chrome Hearts. Though he’s culled his old wine collection, selling off duplicates in two recent Acker Merrall sales that grossed $35.4 million, he continues to buy entire cellars directly from other collectors as well as at auction, and he’s investing heavily in young wine as it is released from Europe’s top producers. But Kurniawan has enough family money to have amassed one of the world’s premier wine collections, estimated at its peak to be more than 50,000 bottles of the most celebrated Bordeaux and Burgundy wines of the last century.Īnd he’s still buying. He spoke heavily accented English when he came to Los Angeles to attend Cal State Northridge 11 years ago, had his first taste of fine wine only six years ago, and makes his home in Arcadia. During the last several years, Kurniawan has spent an estimated $1 million a month bidding at nearly every auction of old and rare wine in the country. Then came buying binges in New York at Sotheby’s and at an Acker Merrall & Condit auction. Then he bought a second case of the same wine for nearly as much.Ī week later, he went on another spending spree at a Zachys auction at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. For one case of 24 half-bottles of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, the famed St.
![racr 2006 rudy storb racr 2006 rudy storb](http://www.toyking.com.tw/image/toy/bandai/00/165507.jpg)
In a few short hours that Saturday afternoon, the then-29-year-old Indonesian-born Kurniawan spent an estimated $500,000. He didn’t blend with the cashmere and Cole Haan crowd hoping to pick up a few bottles of rare and old wine. David Catholic Church in Davie.DRESSED IN scruffy jeans, a tight, gray T-shirt and cowboy boots, Rudy Kurniawan slid into a front-row seat at a Christie’s Beverly Hills auction room.
![racr 2006 rudy storb racr 2006 rudy storb](http://www.toyking.com.tw/image/toy/bandai/barbatos/201879.jpg)
Niesel is survived by his three children nephews and nieces and sister, Trudy Seiffert. "The kids in school want to name the kickball field after him," Rovetto said. Niesel was known for his affinity for kickball. The trio was presented a class-autographed kickball. Niesel's class Tuesday at Silver Ridge Elementary and told the students that their dad would want them to continue learning and to always put education before anything else - even sports - Rovetto said. "You know what I like about you? You look like you have fun on the court and that's what an athlete needs," she recalled him saying. Niesel inspired Sampson to pursue her interests in sports. "He was so fun and dedicated and motivational," she said. "He is - was - my favorite teacher," said Sampson, tears forming in her eyes.