John Kapon is CEO of Acker,
Merrall and Condit, the worlds largest and currently the world’s most
successful wine auction house, that has consistently sat atop of the auction
perch for 6 out of the last 7 years both here in Asia and around the world.
Their recent auction in Hong Kong last weekend saw another amazing set of wines
go on sale and yet another successful weekend generating 115 world records for
wine and realizing HK$52million.
As part of the daily rigours of
being the CEO of the world’s biggest wine auction house John has had to try
some of the most incredible, most rare, most expensive and most sought after
wines on the planet and his new book “The Compendium: Tasting The World’s
Finest Wines”, is a testament to some of the great wines and great wine events
that Mr. Kapon has been privy to over the last decade or so of wine tasting.
The book covers only the wines tasted
from the old world and features a ridiculous array of mouth watering wines that
literally induces drooling (and a touch of jealousy!) while reading. Mr. Kapon
has indeed probably tried more great wines than any other in the last decade
and the book gives a detailed outline of his tastings and his thoughts on the
worlds very best wines.
In Hong Kong for the first
auction of 2013 Mr. Kapon took the time to sit down with Wine Times and talk
about the book that is set to be launched at a mega party in New York on 30th
January so we asked him what the book’s all about.
WTHK: What inspired you to
compile the book?
JK: “I was something I had been
thinking about wanting to do for a while. I was talking about it with Gil
(Lempert-Schwarz) and he brought the idea up with (publisher) World of Fine Wines
and they jumped at the opportunity to do something to help. We worked for months
and months to put it all together and brought it all to life. The book is
essentially for people who are serious collectors or people who aspire to be
serious collectors. It’s a great guide for those who don’t know where to start
or what to do and it’s a great guide for collectors who may not have reference
points for some of these older wines and vintages”.
WTHK: I see that it is entitled “volume
one”. That would suggest there is more on the way.
JK: “Well, not for a while!
Definitely I don’t plan on this being the only book ever, there are too many
wines that we are continuing to consume and write up so it’s not the end of it!
I got about 1500 pages of notes on wine so there’s probably enough already for
almost 5 or 6 compendiums in the future”.
WTHK: Was it like a trip down
memory lane compiling the book?
JK: “Yeah, some of it for sure”.
WTHK: Do you ever look back at
some notes and marvel in the fact you have not remembered tasting a wine?
JK: “It’s happened now and again.
There have been some nights and bottles I will never forget where I was and
what it was! There have been some nights….well you’re just going to have to
take my word for it you know! I have been known to pull a piece of paper from
my draw with like 6 or 8 notes on it, no date and no place where I was and I’ve
thought ‘wow, when was that’!”
WTHK: Is there a stand-out wine
that you have tried in your life thus far?
JK: “Well, the ’45 Romanee Conti,
the ‘34 Romanee Conti and ’45 Petrus spring to mind. There’s a reason Romanee
Conti and Petrus and two of the most expensive wines in the world. 1961 Petrus
I have been fortunate enough to have three or four times and the bottles were
just magnificent. Certainly these wines are at the top of the list but one of
the younger wines, the ’89 Haut Brion I am huge fan of and it’s something that
people can acquire in the market place fairly regularly. That’s the wine to
kind of ‘lock and load’ on”!
WTHK: Is there a wine you have
not tried that you wish you had done?
JK: “No, there’s nothing yet that
I wish I had had. There are plenty of wines that I have not tried and there are
obscure vintages and obscure wines that will disappear as time goes on.
Pre-1945 wines are getting harder to find but I’ve had most of the great wines
from great vintages on multiple occasions. But I can’t say there’s anything that
I am wishing for right now”.
WTHK: If you weren’t in the
business of wine, what would you like to be doing?
JK: “Good question! I was heading
in a music direction but got kind of burned out there – but I’d probably be
writing you know. I love to be writing screenplays or something, you know,
something creative like that. I could be a full time wine writer; that would be
nice. I love writing and sharing and I’ve always kind of felt that it’s great
to be ambassador for the world of wine and if I wasn’t in wine I guess I could
not be that. I am happy to continue this and be able to share this with others”.
WTHK: You don’t believe in and
won’t score 100 points for a wine. Why is that?
JK: “I feel that to say anything
is perfect is very subjective. I feel that nothing and no one really is perfect
and don’t believe in the whole idea of perfection, it’s kind of an idealistic
perceptive thought and one not of reality. I have 26 wines in the book that
have 99 points and it was pretty hard for them to get up there for me. In the
introduction I outline my theories about wine and for me there’s quality wines
that are ‘very good’, ‘excellent’, ‘outstanding’ or ‘best of my life’, so there’s
these four categories – it’s a simple concept but it works well and there’s simple
logic behind the numbers I give the wines”.
John Kapon’s book “The
Compendium: Tasting The World’s Finest Wines” will be released on January 30th
in New York and will be available to buy over the internet from the Acker site:
http://book.ackerwines.com
Accolades for the book:
"Sharp, irreverent, and accurate, John Kapon is the scruffy
genius, the Bill Maher of the wine world." - Dr. Wilfred Jaeger, Collector
“It’s hard to think of anyone in the world who has tasted more great
labels and rare vintages of wine in the past decade than John Kapon.”- James
Suckling, Wine Critic
“Under his relaxed, dilettante exterior, John conceals an incredible
work ethic and relentless drive. In the once-conservative, staid, world of wine
auctions, John has been a true innovator, making them far more user-friendly.
He has also turned wine auctions into veritable social events, bringing the
bidder into the room, no longer merely a voice over the phone. This has
resulted in many new friendships and in many great bottles of wine being
opened. As a producer, it is nice to see these bottles getting opened, rather
than being purely a collectible to be traded from one cellar to the next like any
other commodity. And then there is John’s note taking… With this much great
wine being opened, it made sense of course that someone should keep a record.
That this person should be John makes them that much more fun to read.” -
Jeremy Seysses, Domaine Dujac
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