The Record For The World's Most Expensive Wine Just Got Shattered

"It is both with regret and pleasure that I share these bottles."

The Record For The World's Most Expensive Wine Just Got Shattered

Put your $12 Shiraz down a second and listen to this.

Did you hear it? No? That’s the sound of a record being smashed. Up until recently the most expensive standard bottle of wine ever sold was a ‘measly’ $328,000. But last weekend a bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti Burgundy wine went under the hammer for an unprecedented sum—$785,000, to be exact—at a Sotheby’s auction in New York.

The previous record was set when a 1869 Chateau Lafite Rothschild was sold in Hong Kong in 2010. However this weekend, Romanee-Conti rubbed salt (sulphates?) in the wound, as just minutes after the global record-breaking bottle was sold, another 1945 of the same brand was auctioned for $698,000 (which would have also broken the record).

The sought-after bottles came from the personal collection of Robert Drouhin, former head of the prominent wine producing company, Maison Joseph Drouhin.

 

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As reported by the ABC, “Mr Drouhin’s father made an agreement in 1928 with the owners of Romanee-Conti to be their sole distributor for France and Belgium—and consequently amassed a unique wine collection.”

The wine also has an interesting back-story. According to Mr Drouhin, during world war two, his father created a secret compartment in the cellar to make sure the wine was never discovered by the Nazis.

“It is both with regret and pleasure that I share these bottles,” Mr Drouhin wrote in a statement.

“Regret even through there remain some for my children and friends, but mainly pleasure as those who will purchase the bottles—apart from the appreciation of quality and luxury they convey—they will receive a testimony of my family and Burgundy at its very best.”

For those of us who don’t have $785,000 sitting pretty in the bank, at least Australia’s best Shiraz is a heck more affordable.

 

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