Prices are in british pounds/case of high end Burgundy. Why aren’t the producers shifting stock to Hong Kong? Also, it costs about $40 to ship a case from New York City to Hong Kong so buyers can easily resell or transport their purchase abroad. There must be some tax implication but surely it can’t justify this spread.
Cheap Talk 
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November 7, 2011 at 9:00 am
Steven
Hong Kong has surprisingly few restrictions on wine imports: http://www.usfoods-hongkong.net/res/mns/00119/HK0033.pdf
The US makes it very difficult to export wine:
http://www.ttb.gov/itd/exporting_alcohol.shtml
November 7, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Anonymous
Marginal revenue less than price?
November 7, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Lones Smith
Bottles break too much in transit? ^_^
November 8, 2011 at 7:08 am
Frances
Maybe because in Hong Kong Watson’s Wine Cellar has a near monopoly on high-end wine retailing. It happens to belong to one of the biggest conglomerates of Hong Kong, Hutchison – Whampoa Ltd, which also owns one of the two big low-end wine retailers, an omnipresent supermarket chain. For those who want a more creative way of getting wines, there is the scare of fraud.
November 8, 2011 at 7:16 am
Frances
Sorry. Didn’t notice it was auction prices. Maybe the buyers collect it as a symbol of status, so if there are too many of a wine, it loses its value to the Chinese nouveau riche.