(Decanter) - The 151st Hospices de Beaune auction took a higher total than last year – but prices were down overall. The most striking shortfall was the President’s Lot, the annual special cuvée, a centrepiece of Sunday’s auction, which went for €110,000 (US$150,000), scarcely a quarter of last year’s hammer price. In 2010 the final figure of €5,132,075 was inflated by an astonishing bid of €400,000 for the President’s Lot. This year, the special cuvée was a Grand Cru Corton Clos du Roi, Cuvée Baronne du Baÿ, in a specially- made 460 litre barrel. It was bought by Stephen Williams of The Antique Wine Company in London.