Spanish chef Ferran Adrià decided to sell the vast wine cellar from his 50-year-old avant-garde Catalan restaurant El Bulli, that is now-shuttered to raise money for his elBulli Foundation. Amazing 8,807 bottles out of 10,000 wines which restaurant’s cellar contains, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in two separate auctions. First one is scheduled for April 3rd in Hong Kong, while second will be held in New York on April 26th.
Wine collectors all over the world will have an opportunity to buy some exceptional and unique wines from the list, carefully crafted by elBulli director Juli Soler and a group of sommeliers. It contains more than 1,600 varieties of wine, some of which were labeled exclusively for the three Michelin star establishment.
In a statement, Adrià says, “The elBulli Cellar comprises an exceptional and unique collection of wines, that was created and developed by Juli Soler and the elBulli sommelier team (Agusti Peris, Eloi Sanchez, Isabelle Brunet, Lucas Paya, David Seijas and Ferran Centelles). Due to the transformation of elBulli, from a restaurant to a foundation, we decided this very special and personal collection should be used to make a founding contribution to help ensure the successful launch of the elBulli Foundation.”
Adrià closed El Bulli, the celebrated restaurant on Spain’s Costa Brava in July 2011 at the height of its popularity, to the astonishment of the world’s foodie elite, to turn it into the elBulli Foundation, a culinary research and development centre looking at the process of innovation and creativity and sharing the results via the new website Bullipedia.