Fine French Wine Sells at Auction for Record £424,000

The 1945 Romanee-Conti sold for 17 times its upper estimate of $32,000 at Sotheby’s in New York on Saturday.The previous record for a standard wine bottle was $233,000 – an 1869 Chateau Lafite Rothschild sold in Hong Kong in 2010.But the record for any size is $310,700 for a three-litre 1945 Mouton-Rothschild in 2007.The 1945 bottle is one of just 600 made that year by Romanee-Conti, considered to be the best Burgundy wine.It is produced in the Cote de Nuits region in a vineyard spanning less than four acres (two hectares) and producing fewer than 6,000 bottles per year.

Sotheby’s said the wine was made just before the vineyard was uprooted and that, despite “heavily damp-stained, scuffed, torn, and partially missing” labels, the vintage was “rare and wonderful”.The auction house added: “The best bottles are so concentrated and exotic, with seemingly everlasting power – a wine at peace with itself.”

News item courtesy of Sky News