Locanda Locatelli wines up for auction

When Locanda Locatelli closed its doors in January after 23 years of operating on Seymour Street in London’s West End, it was the end of an era. At the time, a statement from Locatelli simply said that the closure was for "reasons out of our control". Just a few months later, he was back again with a new restaurant, Locatelli at The National Gallery.

However, for those still yearning for a memento of Chef Locatelli's Mayfair establishment, London auction house Bonhams is hosting the sale of the late Locanda Locatelli's cellar, with bidding due to close on Tuesday 14 October.

O'Connell, who returned to London in March of this year in order to take on a role at Bonhams, was instrumental in arranging the auction thanks to his connection to Virgilio Gennaro, sales director at importer of Italian wines FortyFive10° and long-time wine advisor to Locatelli.

"Talking to both him [Gennaro] and Chef Locatelli, there’s an obvious tête-à-tête about investing in the cellar, which is why they had such a great selection of wines. For them it was always important to have an incredible wine list with stacks of vintages of iconic names. I have known Virgilio for a long time," explained O'Connell. "Because we had this contact before, the conversation about selling the cellar started around the end of March. Putting a sale of this size together is a big process."

Online presence

Indeed, at 404 lots, it is no small undertaking for the Bonhams team – perhaps fortunately, given its scale, the auction is taking place online.

“Post-Covid, we have moved into online auctions as the standard," O'Connell shared. "Wine auctions, because they tend to have many lots, can be a very long, drawn out thing. If we did an auction of this size, 400 lots, with bidding in the room and on the phone, it could take an eight or 10 hour day. By doing it online, we close the lots at 30 second intervals, if people are bidding at the last minute we extend the lot by three minutes to give people an extra chance to bid. Realistically, a 400 lot auction can be finished online in a few hours."

The lots will begin closing from 11am (BST) on 14 October.

"The online auction is up for two weeks in advance of it closing, which gives people enough time to decide whether they really want a wine or not. As a mechanism, it really works well specifically for wine."

Another advantage to the auction taking place online is that it has attracted a huge deal of international interest.

“We always do well in London because it’s such an international city. We also have loads of interest from Hong Kong and, of course, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe. We have bits and pieces from the states, though that has changed a little bit with tariffs," O'Connell revealed. "The trade have really got behind it too – for merchants it’s a cool story that can be passed onto their clients."

That's your lot

Asked the question that everyone who works in auctions must receive on a regular basis, 'which lots stand out to you?', O'Connell said: "There’s a particular lot of 1997 Sassicaia. We tried a bottle that came from the restaurant last week and it was absolutely singing, so that’s quite special."

The lot in question, 44, consists of three 75cl bottles with a guide price of £800-1,000.

"My personal favourite in the sale is Lot 1, which is the three key vineyards of Gaja, and four different vintages of them – it’s a vertical and a horizontal tasting of Gaja Barbaresco in one 12-bottle case. We don’t often get the opportunity to be super geeky like that! The reason we were able to do that with these particular bottles is because they were literally at the restaurant,” O'Connell shared.

The guide price for these dozen bottles is £2,600-3,400.

But beyond the big blockbuster names of Italian wine from Piemonte and Tuscany, O'Connell also noted that there are other gems in the sale, including three lots from Colli Orientali's Miani and a sizeable selection from leading Alto Aidge cooperative Cantina Terlano/Kellerei Terlan: "Those wines are just delicious, and incredible value when compared to the world of wine. The Terlano Primo Grande Cuvée is just a stunning wine that competes with the best Burgundies."

Beyond Italian offerings, 1994 Fonseca Port and 1996 Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill also figure in the lineup.

"The provenance of all the wines is absolutely amazing because the cases were kept in professional storage," O'Connell added.

The strength of the selection is, according to O'Connell, a testament to Locanda Locatelli itself: "These are cool wines and at a good price, but it’s all about the passion and long-term thinking that went into investing into a cellar like this. Locanda Locatelli was very much an independent venture of Giorgio and his wife, Plaxy. Independent restaurateurs who invest in their cellars are effectively taking money out of their own pockets. Giorgio would say that every year he wanted to buy a Maserati, but that Virgilio would tell him to invest in the wine instead in order to make the list the best that it could be!"