Wine auctioneer Simon Tam focuses on gaining the trust of Chinese wine collectors through his dedication to provenance and making wine more accessible. Ruby Gao uncorks a bottle.

Asia’s top wine auctioneer Simon Tam compares himself to a glass of Sherry Palo Cortado, old-fashioned yet delicious, and perhaps most importantly, it can age over a long time.

The Hong Kong-based auctioneer successfully co-hosted the wine section in Christie’s first-ever Chinese mainland auction on September 26 in Shanghai. But he says he still cannot forget the first time he pounded the gavel down on the rostrum to conclude a sale. He was nervous, he recalls, his eyes darting around to make sure he didn’t miss any bids from the 100 people in the room.

“When I said ‘sold, yours,’ my life’s work had changed,” Tam says.

Big auction houses are the preferred choice among wine lovers seeking to buy rare wines because they trust the auctioneer’s professionalism. Such auctions also often provide the best wines at the best prices.

Being a salesman is part of the job and the part that is most noticeable. However, most of his work is done before the auction. This includes finding clients who want to sell part of their wine collection and assessing and cataloguing the wines that will be sold.

A wine auctioneer is known for assessing the value of a wine without tasting it, and using a distinctive language to write the catalogue.

Gaining trust among collectors is not easy. The auctioneer needs to rely on deep knowledge of wines and vineyards, yet they also have to be somewhat of a detective to check that wines have been stored properly to ensure quality.

“Even though it seems that my job is always about 50,000-yuan (US$8,064.5) bottles of Lafite 1920 and 1990, knowledge is far more important,” Tam tells Shanghai Daily during an exclusive interview in Hong Kong.

A large role in Christie’s wine sales

Tam, 45, was born in Hong Kong, but moved to Australia with his parents when he was eight years old. He returned to his birthplace in 1992, and is now “the first and only Chinese head of an international auction house’s wine department.”

He joined Christie’s two years ago and has played a large role in the auction house’s increasing wine sales in Asia, which have been largely driven by Chinese bidders. Before that, he founded the Independent Wine Center, a wine education and consulting organization with offices in both Hong Kong and Shanghai.

According to Christie’s, the number of Chinese wine bidders has increased 1,550 percent from 2008 to 2012, when Hong Kong eliminated duties on wine, bringing prices down.

Tam attributes his success to his commitment to perfect provenance and his understanding of Chinese and Western cultures.

“For me, my job is to bring the best provenance to auction. If I have any suspicion, I just turn it out of the cellar,” Tam says.

Provenance refers to a record of ownership and is crucial in determining whether a wine has been properly stored.

He says Chinese collectors are often more demanding about provenance than Westerners because Chinese buy wine to drink.

As the top auctioneer, Tam probably visits the most wine cellars in Asia and he has found that Asian collectors generally store wine at near-perfect conditions.

He recalls finding some “amazingly bad cellars with broken wooden cases with wine dripping out and no air conditioning” among Western collectors. He says it’s most likely because some Western collectors received the bottles as gifts.

Thus finding a wine with great provenance is becoming increasingly difficult.

Tam says that’s why only four lots of wine sold in Christie’s first Chinese mainland auction, much less than art and jewelry pieces.

“Those four lots were directly from the cellars of chateaux Lafite, Latour, Margaux and Mouton, which can be seen as perfect provenance. The final selling prices, around 20 percent more than estimated, were not crazy but good. Chinese wine lovers who are experienced and knowledgeable stop bidding at a reasonable price,” the auctioneer says.

Tam shares his checklist for authenticating the provenance of a wine. It starts with asking the consigner to provide photos of the wine cellar, wine label and ullage. If they pass the check, a wine specialist is assigned to inspect the cellar in person.

A wooden case of wine is opened if it’s older than 20 years. If the average ullage of each bottle in the case is average, the wine is believed to have been stored properly. Varying ullage indicates the wine has not been stored at the proper temperature.

The auctioneer’s team then starts looking for signs if anyone changes the wine inside. The capsule, cork and label are key indicators.

Wine knowledge

The capsule should match the label. The foil design needs to match the chateau’s style at the time of bottling. A flashlight is used to inspect the cork and the marks on it.

The wine label to a large extent challenges an auctioneer’s knowledge.

“It’s much more complex than what wine lovers imagine,” says Tam.

He cites 1983 Burgundy wine as an example. There are different labels for the same vintage — some old, some new. This doesn’t mean the authenticity of the wine is doubted necessarily.

“Many Burgundy wine producers are old-fashioned farmers, who stick the label on the bottle freely for not wasting anything,” Tam says. “But the physical check only ensures the current storage environment of the wine, we cannot tell how it was treated 10 years ago. Thus, we will ask the consigner to provide the receipt and record of each bottle and check the source,” Tam adds.

If he is not satisfied with the provenance, he gives up the business.

One of Tam’s claims to fame is that his China specialist team at Christie’s introduced “Perfect Pairings” in the wine catalogues of spring auction this May. It aims to promote Chinese and other Asian dining cultures as well as to encourage wine collectors to explore drinking pleasure matched with food.

After all, serving steak with wine is not part of Chinese daily life, Tam says. Peking roast duck with a Burgundy red, and hairy crab roe and meatballs with a 1988 vintage Champagne are his two “golden” pairings.

He has also worked hard to cultivate his own writing style that is simple and readable. Tam avoids terms such as “chocolate flavor” or “smells of cinnamon” that are often used by wine critics.

One Tam wine description reads: “The soft and fruity wine brings you a feeling of happiness and makes me think of my good old friend. If my father was still alive, I would definitely open the bottle with him.”

His writing adds emotion and personality to wine descriptions. Tam attributes it to working as a wine educator, teaching wine beginners about his passion in a fun way.

Jonathan Fewtrell, a former wine student of Tam’s, says: “Simon impresses by using plain language, avoiding waffle and demonstrating some simple and surprisingly effective techniques ... that even a novice like me can take away and use in real life.”

A people person

Tam says his knack for describing wine in memorable words is due to building a relationship between wine and occasion, wine and memory.

“That’s the highest stage of appreciating wine,” the auctioneer says.

“Besides the salary, it’s people that keep me going. I love interaction, which helps me learn new things,” he says.

As a wine auctioneer, he feels lucky because most people enjoy a good wine.

Seeking out potential clients is often, well, a wining and dining process. If one of his clients opens a bottle of wine, four or five of his friends are invited to have a glass. These friends then become potential clients.

Compared with art and jewelry auctioneers, whose clients are dominated by millionaires and billionaires, Tam’s clients are much more diverse because many fine wines are affordable.

“For the Henry Tang (Asia’s biggest wine collector) wine auction as an example, some of the bottles sold for 2,500 yuan. You don’t need to be a millionaire, you just need a passion for wine,” Tam says.

His sense of achievement mainly comes from selling unknown inexpensive wines, not the famous first-growth Bordeaux vintages. People buying the former have confidence and faith in him and those buying the later have more confidence in labels.

Asked about his favorite wine memory, Tam says he enjoys the time with his father-in-law every year he goes to Portugal with his Portuguese wife.

“I play a wine game with him. We have a competition to see who can identify the most cost-effective wine,” he recalls. “Usually he wins because he’s local.”

Tam traces his affection for people back to his childhood.

His family owned 20 Chinese restaurants in South Australia, so he was often around large groups enjoying a nice meal. To help his family business, he studied hospitality management and wine marketing at Regency and Roseworthy Colleges in Australia.

At the age of 16, he stole half a bottle of 1961 Chateau Lafite from his mother.

“Mom said the wine is amazing. I shared the bottle with my friends and we all thought it was not very tasty. I was curious why we had such different opinions,” the auctioneer says.

This was his start into the wine world.

Tam says he is so busy that he wishes there were 35 hours in a day. During the day he handles Christie’s wine fairs in Asia; in the evening he contacts Christie’s London and New York offices as well as Western wine producers.

He’s planning to hold more wine auctions on the Chinese mainland. He’s also trying to establish a proper provenance checking system to gain more trust from Chinese wine lovers.

He also runs an iPhone application “Flavour Colours,” arguably the first Chinese food and wine pairing app.

Tam is an active wine columnist and speaker at various wine conferences.

“Time is very important for us to continue telling the story of wine in China,” he says.

Luckily, time seems to be on his side as sherry is known to age rather well.

About ‘Flavour Colours’

It’s an app showing my wine philosophy, categorizing food and wine into four colours — blond, ivory, tan and brown.

Color does not just represent flavor but also seasonality. Chinese don’t always choose food and wine because of certain flavors, but because of weather.

For example, blond brings to mind the zest of fresh lemon, delicate white flower blossoms and a sunny day with sea breezes. Brown represents warmth, a sense of comfort represented by a mature old red, and dark chocolate truffles. I take away technical and complicated language and use color matching to make food and wine pairing easier to understand.

— Simon Tam