Zachys will hold its first auction in Hong Kong on 25 October.

Announcing this debut sale yesterday, the New York auction house said, 'The recent elimination of import duties has made Hong Kong unquestionably the trading hub for wine in Asia, and Zachys has already spent several months building its Far Eastern infrastructure.'

This internationalisation of Zachys' auctioning of fine and rare wines will translate into 'an elegant catalog distributed to wealthy wine enthusiasts in Asia and the rest of the world,' the house said.

Zachys is a major retailer in Scarsdale, New York, a blue-chip suburb in affluent Westchester County, north of New York City.

Since Zachys formed its auction arm in 2002, it has held 50 sales grossing US$195,232,250 in New York City, in Los Angeles with Wally's, a major retailer, and, recently, in Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Bonhams & Butterfields, based in San Francisco, was the first American auction house to hold a Hong Kong auction this year. Acker Merrall and Condit was the second. Zachys' sale will be held in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.