1787 vintage sauterne sold for $100,000 |
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Sun, 12 Feb 2006 10:10
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LONDON: A 1787 vintage sauterne, a delicate sweet white wine from Bordeaux, France, has been bought by a U.S. wine connoisseur for $100,000 at a London wine auction recently.
The identity of the buyer has been kept secret. The price he paid is said to be the highest ever for a bottle of wine.
Antique Wine Company of London had owned the bottle, after acquiring it from a private collector in France. Its managing director Stephen Williams said the Chateau Yquem sauterne is made from completely shrivelled, late harvested grapes. It is capable of maturing for many years, "even centuries."
"We have been working for some time on this commission and the purchaser is a long standing customer of ours," Williams said. "This is really a very rare wine."
Williams will fly to the U.S. to hand-deliver the bottle to his client.
Elaborating on its vintage nature, Williams said, when the grapes for the wine were being picked, "Marie Antoinette was sitting in Versailles waiting to have her head chopped off, James Watt was developing or inventing the steam engine and George Washington had just been nominated the first president of the United States of America".
One of the known previous owners of the Yquem 1787 is Raymond Beaudouin, a well known wine merchant of France and founder of La Revue du Vin de France.
Williams said at some stage, the bottle was returned to Chateau Yquem, which was purchased by LVMH in 1997. It was inspected and re-corked in 1980 and again in 1991 by Count Alexandre Lur Saluces at the chateau.
"He would only have done this if he'd thought the bottle was in good shape," said Williams. The oldest Yquem he had tasted was the 1865 vintage and that was "remarkably youthful".
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