Britain's government is sellingvintage French wine at around 5,000 pounds a bottle ($7,500) ina bid to make its wine cellar self-funding as part of a nationalausterity drive and clamp-down on extravagant expenditure.
The government wine cellar, located in the basement ofLancaster House near Buckingham Palace, is used to provide winefor foreign VIP guests ranging from royalty to heads of stateand prime ministers at 200 or more events a year.
The cellar contains 38,090 bottles of wine and spirits withan estimated market value of 2.95 million pounds ($4.47million), according to an annual report on the cellar releasedlast month.
But figures show that a government review from 2010recommending the cellar become self-funding rather than a drainon taxpayers had not worked out with sales of 44,000 pounds lastyear but purchases of about 49,000 pounds.
Auction house Christie's said the government was selling sixlots of wine, a total of 54 bottles, on March 21 with the saleexpected to raise up to 65,000 pounds ($98,000).
A spokeswoman said this was "the first time that wine fromthe Government Hospitality Cellar has gone to auction" withprevious sales conducted privately.
"This is part of the process for making the cellarself-funding for the lifetime of the current parliament," said astatement from Mark Simmonds, a junior minister in Britain'sForeign and Commonwealth Office.
Austerity has been the watchword for finance minister GeorgeOsborne since his Conservative-led coalition came to power in2010 but last week Britain suffered its first ever sovereignratings downgrade when Moody's cut its rating to Aa1 from Aaa,citing weak prospects for British economic growth.
Christie's said six bottles of the highly sought after 1961vintage of Chateau Latour were leading the auction, with each ofthese estimated to raise up to 5,000 pounds a bottle.
The sale also includes six bottles of 1978 Petrus and casesof 1986 Chateau Mouton Rothschild and 1988 Lafite Rothschild.
"Many of the wines included in this sale have been servedacross the decades to kings and queens, presidents and primeministers," the Christie's spokeswoman said.
The sale comes at a time when affluent drinkers in Chinaand the United States are spending more on expensive wines withgrowing demand for better quality vintages, according to a studyreleased at the Vinexpo wine trade show in January.
China has become the biggest importer of Bordeaux wines withconsumption soaring by 110 percent in 2011.
The government wine cellar was set up in 1922 to providehospitality for high-level overseas government guests.
Christie's said the cellar was an "exemplar of professionalcellar management", with wines bought young and held in idealconditions until fully mature and ready to drink.
The wines are bought on the recommendation of a committeethat is made up of five people who select on blind tastings.
Details in the annual statement on the government winecellar for 2011-12 showed that 4,651 bottles worth 55,679 poundswere drunk from the store between April 2011 and March 2012.