One sunny afternoon last month, auctioneer John Kapon of Acker Merrall & Condit crisply tapped his hammer down on one of the highest sales ever for one of the great Bordeaux reds of the last century. Café Gray at Time Warner Center had been transformed into a temporary auction house, where trophy wine hunters wielded paddles instead of stemware — and they did so avidly. This fall, in fact, the entire wine auction market has been racing upward at astonishing speed. And all eyes are now on the Zachys auction at Daniel this evening, where the most desirable lots could smash previous auction records. And more records could fall tomorrow night at Christie’s Rockefeller Center auction.

For the first half of the year, for example, Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945 sold for an average of $63,000 a case, according to the Wine Spectator Auction Index. At the Acker Auction, however, a casually dressed man with a shaved head paid a startling $155,350 for the 12 bottles of lot 523 — a 69% increase over the 2006 first-half average. Barely a minute later, the same paddle also won lot 524, a case of six magnums (double size bottles) of the same wine. It also went for $155,350 (including a buyer’s premium of 19.5%). The next day, at Aulden Cellars–Sotheby’s New York sale, a case of Mouton-Rothschild 1945 sold for $161,325. That price, far beyond the range of most wine-buying mortals, seemed like a bargain compared to the all-time high prices fetched for the wine at the Christie’s Los Angeles auction in late September. There, a case of Mouton-Rothschild 1945 sold for $290,000, while a case of magnums of the same wine reached $345,000.

As Mouton-Rothschild 1945 goes, so has gone the entire autumn market for trophy-grade wines. Acker’s two-day auction at Café Gray, fetched $25.7 million, setting new highs for single wines and beating the previous aggregate sales record for a single auction, standing since 1999, by more than $10 million. Remarkably, every bottle offered at the auction was sourced from a single, anonymous California collector who also consigned all the wines for an Acker auction last January that fetched $11.6 million. The auction reporter for Wine Spectator magazine, Peter Meltzer, summed up Acker’s September sale as “mindboggling.”

This evening, as the bidding action shifts to the restaurant Daniel, Zachys will offer 290 lots of trophy wine. Zachy’s production of a hard-bound catalog, rather than the paperback used even for the top art sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, is an indicator that this sale is significant. Its title, “Provenance,” is meant to assure bidders that all lots have been stored ideally. “The pursuit of provenance recalls an earlier era of wine auctions, when great wine seemed more collectible than commodity,” auction consultant Fritz Hatton writes in the catalog’s preface. That distinction is disingenuous, since fine wine is more than ever a sizzling commodity. At Daniel, Mr. Hatton and other auctioneers will do their best to turn the heat up even higher.

Zachys offers its own lot of Mouton-Rothschild 1945 tonight, this one a case of 24 half-bottles. Generally, half bottles are less desirable than full bottles, since the smaller size ages more rapidly. But this lot carries an estimate of between $70,000 and $120,000, right up there with Acker’s presale estimate on its full bottles of Mouton-Rothschild 1945. That’s because the half-bottles come directly from the cellar of Mähler-Besse, an old-line Bordeaux trading company that has long bought direct from the châteaus and typically stores its most age-worthy wines for decades before releasing them.

Another lot that should draw intense interest at the Zachys sale is a case of an exceedingly rare red burgundy, Richebourg Henri Jayer 1985. Burgundy’s most revered winemaker, Jayer died earlier this year. He made fewer than 100 cases of this Richebourg, of which a fraction was imported to America. These 12 bottles are estimated to sell for between $100,000 and $200,000, and could go much higher. “All it takes is two determined bidders,” Mr. Meltzer said. Another lot likely to be in the spotlight is a 10-case lot of assorted Bordeaux reds, all of them rated a “perfect” 100 points by reigning wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. The lot is estimated to sell for between $70,000 and $120,000.

American wines, their long-term aging potential comparatively untested — except for bottlings of fine wine pioneers of the 1940s and 1950s, such as Beaulieu Vineyards and Inglenook — don’t reach nearly to French price levels. But one lot considered highly desirable is a 30-bottle collection of 10 vintages (1992–2002) of the ultra-rare Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon. It is estimated to bring between $55,000 and $85,000, which means it could become the most expensive single case of American wine sold at a commercial auction. All records for a single lot of this “supercab” are likely to be broken tomorrow at Christie’s, when a 60-bottle lot of mixed vintages of Screaming Eagle will be sold for an estimated $70,000 to $140,000. According to Mr. Meltzer, the current record is held by Screaming Eagle 1992, sold by Acker for $71,100 last year.

Why has auction action in wines reached such fevered levels? “It’s an upward spiraling effect,” the president, of Zachys, Jeff Zacharia, said. “You have more wealthy collectors chasing investment-grade wines, and that brings more of those wines to market. We are receiving wines from collectors who swore they would never sell them. But when they see the prices out there, they change their minds.” A new cohort of no-holdsbarred buyers from Russia and the Pacific Rim has intensified demand for top wines. What may be the world’s most extensive trophy wine list in a restaurant, for example, is at Robuchon à Galera, in a Macau casino.

The leading British auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, long held sway as wine auctioneers. Their traditional customer base was the British upper class. But American–based auction houses, which have been permitted to operate in the state only since 1994, are now ascendant. Zachys and Acker have taken turns as top sellers in recent years. “The balance of power has shifted to the American retailer because we can relate to the American customer,” the president of Acker Auctions, John Kapon, said. “You don’t have to call a British auction house and deal with the daughter of ‘Winthrop Woodward IV’ who is there because of her daddy but doesn’t know much about wine. Besides, unlike the Brits, we have the hustler mentality. We give fast decisions on wines offered to us.”

Despite rising prices, the wine buff on a budget need not despair, according to Wine Spectator’s Mr. Meltzer, whose new book, “Keys to the Cellar” (Wiley, $29.95), outlines auction strategies. “What’s really heartening is that the market has polarized,” Mr. Meltzer said. “It’s the trophy wines at the top for which people will duel to the depths of their pockets, while the lower end of the price spectrum tends to be sane, sound, and accessible. You can buy off-vintages and unsung wines at below retail, often for well under $500 per lot.” In Zachys “regular” two-day fall auction tomorrow and Friday, for example, a lot of two magnums of Ceretto’s Barolo Bricco Roche “Bricco Roche” 1997, is estimated at between $400 and $600. In that range, one can acquire a very great wine that the top duelers are likely to ignore. “Just remember,” Mr. Meltzer said, “Caviar is exciting, but there’s more money in cabbage.”