Hello, good evening, and welcome...to my fascinating wine cellar

Sir David Frost is selling his house – so his legendary collection of vintages has to go, too

(REX FEATURES)

Sir David Frost is moving house and has decided to share his love of fine wine with the public – but anyone wishing to taste one of the broadcaster's celebrated vintages will have to bid up to £5,000 a bottle. Eighty-one lots of Sir David's collection of finest Bordeaux, most dating from the 1850s to the 1950s, will be sold by Christie's at its salesroom in St James's, central London on 9 June.

Whether for reasons of space or economy (Christies is not saying), Sir David has decided to get rid of a few things. While for an ordinary homeowner that might mean the jettisoning of an oversize sofa, a mound of yellowing gas bills and a relative's well-meaning gift of a garish vase, Sir David's disposals are of a different order.

Sir David, the 72-year-old interviewer, journalist and bon viveur, is expected to net up to £120,000 by downsizing his cellar. The oldest bottle on sale – an 1853 Château Mouton-Rothschild – could go for a mere £500. A bottle of 1965 Lafite-Rothschild has an estimate of £3,000-5,000, while several bottles of Mouton-Rothschild 1945 are put at £3,000-4,000 apiece.

Sir David has decided to sell off some wine after moving from the Victorian pile he has shared for 30 years with his wife Lady Carina in Carlyle Square, Chelsea, where figures from politics, the media and the arts gather every summer to quaff champagne and exchange gossip.

The broadcaster, most famous for his televisual grilling of the former US President Richard Nixon, is moving to a nearby Grade II-listed £7m home, reconstructed in the late 1960s under the guidance of the Royal Academy president Sir Hugh Casson and the architect Philip Jebb.

The sale includes prized silverware, paintings and antiques and no fewer than 270 bottles, 24 half-bottles, 13 magnums, 1 jeroboam and 1 impériale of some of the world's finest wines.

According to Christie's, Sir David began his collection of older wines after a visit to a San Francisco restaurant called Ernie's, where he "relished" a 1918 bottle of Château d'Issan. At Cambridge University, where he read English, Sir David formed a wining and dining club called the Cabal, with the archaeologist Colin Renfrew, now the Conservative peer Lord Renfrew.

Christie's said: "Sir David has said that wines of these older vintages have rarely, if ever, disappointed him, and he would now like to share his enjoyment with other collectors."

Among the other items from Sir David and Lady Carina's home going for auction two days earlier, on June 7, are an Edwardian silver bowl made by Wakeley & Wheeler (estimate: £800-£1,000) and a Biedermeier ash and satinwood secretaire à abattant (estimate £1,500-£2,500). An English burr-walnut cigar humidor could sell for as little as £100.