It’s the wine itemizing(icle) to outprice all completely different wine lists:
THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE WINES!!!
Price hunters flip once more now (and please detour to this beneficial subsequent hyperlink): You’ll uncover no extreme quality-to-price ratio wine bargains proper right here. That’s the monument the place price acquired right here to die, a tower to Jeroboam, Methuselah, Nebuchadnezzar and Double Magnum.
Stand on the precipice of our Skyscraper to Additional and behold: These are the wines so legendary, so legendary that the wealthiest amongst us will bid in a charming opponents of Who Will Pay the Most Money for Earlier Grape Juice … That Could Have Touched Someone’s Ft. (Observe to Bravo TV: I will utterly report on, if not co-host, Cellar Peacocks of River Oaks. Identify me!)
After combing the archives of the world’s most prestigious efficient wine public sale properties—from Acker to Bonhams to Christie’s to Sotheby’s to Wally’s to Zachys to Hart to Davis and once more to Hart—we’ve compiled this itemizing of the Most Pricey Wines Ever Provided (along with the Most Pricey Champagne Ever Provided).
And whereas nothing brings out the wine-thirsty rich like Burgundy and its Pinot Noirs (and Chardonnays), you’ll moreover uncover Cabernet stars of Bordeaux, California and a few completely different prestigious addresses the place bottles start at 4 figures. No standard-size bottle of wine has however purchased for $1 million, nevertheless we’ve gotten halfway there already. You heard it proper right here first: Vinflation will declare a seven-figure 750ml wine bottle by 2030. And it will already be on this itemizing …
These largely decades-old wines are prized for his or her rarity and ageability, although their exact “enjoyability” is inside the eye, palate and pocketbook of the bidder.
With a couple of of those bottles, how the wine inside them “tastes” (and aged wine represents its private acquired model to begin with) may be inappropriate. Nevertheless with out fail, when the general public sale hammer fell on these record-breaking bottles, the price was obscene. Will this itemizing shake your faith inside the very material of the overseas cash system? Pretty in all probability. And in that spirit, we’ve created a model new metric to help us larger relate to the true price of (a) model: Price per drop.
Are You Down with PPD?
Price per drop is derived using a proprietary algorithm developed in a single amongst Wine Spectator’s extraordinarily protected wine caves (calculations carried out with calcareous chalk on a limestone cavern wall). Using the pharmaceutical measurement for a drop (0.05ml), we would merely arrange a per-drop price based mostly totally on a bottle’s listed amount and value.
However, the exact amount of wine held inside a bottle decreases over time as a result of the liquid slowly evaporates by the cork. (Evaporation prices will fluctuate based mostly totally on the way in which and diploma of a given pure cork’s imperfections.) This measure of evaporated wine (oft referred to as the angel’s share in the middle of the barrel-aging course of) is witnessed in a bottle’s ullage, or the quantity of air, referred to as “headspace,” contained within the bottle. The older a wine and its cork flip into, the bigger its ullage, and the a lot much less wine there’s left to take pleasure in.
In accordance with my useful pocket model of the Christie’s public sale dwelling ullage data developed by the late fine-wine public sale pioneer Michael Broadbent, a mid-shoulder fill stage is “not irregular for wines 40 years of age.”
Funnel in hand, I shortly ascertained {{that a}} “mid-shoulder” fill represents the dearth of roughly 2 tablespoons of wine, so we are going to calculate a conservative attrition cost of seven milliliters per decade, or about 14 drops per yr. Clearly by now you’re asking your self two questions: What the hell am I learning? and …
How Many Drops Are in a Bottle of Wine?
At 0.05ml per drop, an atypical 750ml bottle of wine incorporates 15,000 drops. That locations a 5-ounce glass of wine at 2,957 drops, and a full 9-liter case concepts the beaker at 180,000 drops. Relating to price per drop, a $15 bottle of wine comes out to 10 drops per cent, or a PPD of $0.001. That is a superb price!
Having established our ranking metric, we moreover added some filters. Wines purchased for set off (and a very good tax deduction) at charity wine auctions aren’t eligible for consideration (nevertheless we’ll focus on them anyway). We’ve moreover disqualified counterfeit wines (nevertheless we’ll focus on these too).
This definitive itemizing of the world’s costliest wines ever purchased represents solely precise, fungible bottles which had been purchased purely for his or her perceived price to their very precise patrons. Fakes and tax breaks to the once more, er, entrance. Properly, you’ll see. Now bid RIP to QPR and submit your self to the PPD Index, the place FOMO meets “Oh F, How So much Did I Merely Spend on Wine?!”
The 17 Most Pricey Wines Ever Provided
Automated DQ, Fraud Model: Thomas Jefferson’s 1787 Lafite, Provided for $156,450
In 1985, Christopher Forbes paid $156,450 for a bottle of 1787 Château Lafite acquired by infamous efficient wine vendor Hardy Rodenstock. The bottle was engraved “Th. J.,” purportedly indicating that it had belonged to well-known wine connoisseur and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. The bottle’s authenticity was first referred to as into question by Jefferson historians at Monticello. Collector and counterfeit crusader Bill Koch, who purchased one amongst Rodenstock’s completely different Jefferson bottles, filed a lawsuit; a determine dominated in opposition to Rodenstock in absentia, nevertheless Koch was not at all able to collect (though he did from completely different wine sellers that he accused of selling fake wine). The true Château Lafite Rothschild is one amongst Bordeaux’s genuine 4 first-growths, incomes the best ranking in Napoleon III’s 1855 Classification of Bordeaux, and new vintages of this extraordinarily regarded Cabernet-based pink from Bordeaux’s Pauillac appellation promote for as a lot as $1,000 a bottle.
Supposed age of wine at sale date: 198 years
Price per drop: $12.79 of precise money
Dishonorable unmentionables: The completely different fake Jefferson bottles; the interrupted sale of Domaine Ponsot Burgundies that Ponsot not at all made; one thing that handed by convicted counterfeiter Rudy Kurniawan’s dwelling
Automated DQ, Tax Break Model: The Setting Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Glass Slipper 2019, Provided for $1,000,000 (6-liter bottle)
We love chef Emeril Lagasse and his annual Carnivale du Vin charity event, and in 2021, anyone favored Emeril, philanthropy and Napa Cabernet loads that they paid $1 million for a one-of-a-kind 6-liter imperial (or methuselah, whenever you need) of The Setting Cabernet made with grapes from Glass Slipper vineyard in Napa’s Coombsville AVA. They solely made the one 6-liter bottle, nevertheless you should purchase your particular person regular-size bottle of The Setting Cabernet for about $200.
Age: 2 years
PPD: $8.33
Honorable level out, tax break model: A 6-liter bottle of 1992 Screaming Eagle Napa Cabernet purchased for $500,000 on the annual Napa Valley Wine Public sale in 2000. (Nowadays you should purchase a regular-size bottle of the ’92 Screagle for about 8 grand, and the charity public sale goes by Collective Napa Valley).
No. 15, the Most Pricey Italian Wine Ever Provided: Bibi Graetz Toscana Colore 2016, Provided for $110,986 (27-liter bottle)
Whereas this itemizing may largely level out in another case, not all of the world’s costliest wines come from France. A couple of of Italy’s most fascinating wines, significantly from Piedmont and Tuscany, can command four-figure sums on launch, along with Barolos from Aldo Conterno, Barbarescos from Gaja and Roagna, and super Tuscans like Masseto. Nevertheless the highest-priced bottle of Italian wine ever purchased comes from one amongst Tuscany’s most revered cult wine figures: Bibi Graetz.
Graetz’s Sangiovese-based Colore and Testamatta super Tuscans attribute artist labels created by Graetz, and his wines are extraordinarily sought by collectors. Earlier this yr, a 27-liter goliath of Graetz’s Colore 2016 purchased for higher than $110,000 at Swiss wine service supplier Arvi. A traditional 750ml bottle of the 2016 Colore (95 elements), worth $450 on launch in 2019, and the most recent traditional, 2021, is priced at an far more reasonably priced $300.
Age: 8 years
PPD: $0.21
No. 14, the Sticker Shock Award: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti 2021, launch price of $10,213
Not all wines must age to earn their astronomical price tags; a couple of of them are born with them! The latest traditional of Burgundy’s famed Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Pinot Noir from the Romanée-Conti grand cru vineyard has a immediate retail price of $10,213 per bottle. (Wine Spectator senior editor Bruce Sanderson not too way back reviewed DRC’s 2021 and 2022 lineups.) The 2021 traditional at DRC incorporates some additional cheap selections as properly, along with a $5,592 bottle of Chardonnay from the Montrachet grand cru vineyard and a $3,295 grand cru Pinot Noir from La Tâche vineyard.
Age: 2 years
PPD: $0.68
Honorable level out, SRP model: Portugal’s Quinta do Crasto not too way back launched a non-vintage Tawny Port Very Earlier Honore 400 Years Celebration bottle for $8,500. Together with DRC, a handful of wineries across the globe value close to $5,000 a bottle for his or her most in-demand new releases, along with Bordeaux’s Pétrus and Le Pin, Burgundy’s d’Auvenay, Leflaive, Leroy, Ramonet (study our May 31, 2024, cowl story) and Roumier, Champagne’s Krug and Napa’s Ghost Horse.
No. 13: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1990, Provided for $179,250 (9-liter case)
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is the long-reigning king of the efficient wine public sale market, and this 2022 Hart Davis Hart sale was led by a case of the world’s most sought-after Pinot Noir. A 9-liter case of DRC’s 1990 Romanée-Conti bottling purchased for virtually $180,000, and a case of 1999 DRC RC purchased for $107,550.
Age: 32 years
PPD: $1.03
No. 12: Domaine d’Auvenay Chevalier-Montrachet 2007, Provided for $240,412 (9-liter case)
In late 2023, Taiwanese paintings and wine collector Pierre Chen started auctioning numerous his renowned wine assortment, and this unusual white Burgundy from Lalou Bize-Leroy’s Domaine d’Auvenay exceeded expectations when it netted higher than $240,000 for a 9-liter case.
Age: 16 years
PPD: $1.36
No. 11: Domaine Leflaive Montrachet 2010, Provided for $43,575 (1.5-liter bottle)
One different Chardonnay makes our itemizing, and a good youthful one at that, from Domaine Leflaive and the grand cru Montrachet vineyard in Burgundy. This bottle of 2010 Leflaive Montrachet was purchased in 2021 at Acker’s third-annual Grande Fête de Bourgogne public sale.
Age: 11 years
PPD: $1.47
No 10: Domaine Leroy 1991, Provided for $460,650 (9-liter case)
A case of Burgundy powerhouse Domaine Leroy’s 1991 Musigny purchased for higher than $460,000 at Acker’s 2021 public sale in Delaware. A second case of Leroy Musigny 1991, along with a case of 1993 Musigny, purchased for virtually $450,000 each on the same sale.
Age: 30 years
PPD: $2.63
No. 9: Château Cheval-Blanc 1947, purchased for $304,375 (6-liter bottle)
In 2010, Christie’s held an public sale of large-format bottles of the legendary 1947 traditional from Bordeaux’s Château Cheval-Blanc in St.-Emilion. (Wine-in-film followers will recall that one different legendary Cheval-Blanc traditional, 1961, serves as Miles’ ironic trophy wine in Sideways.) The 50-50 Cabernet Franc and Merlot combine made a large impression in 1947, and as soon as extra in 2010, when an imperial of the famed Cheval-Blanc traditional purchased for $304,375.
Age: 63 years
PPD: $2.69
No. 8: Château Mouton-Rothschild 1945, Provided for $310,700 (4.5-liter bottle)
Pristine provenance paved the payday path for a 4.5-liter jeroboam of the revered 1945 traditional from Bordeaux’s Château Mouton-Rothschild. Sotheby’s consigned the wine immediately from the non-public cellar of Mouton proprietor Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, and the unusual large-format bottle set a model new doc when it purchased in 2007. The sale was accompanied by an exhibition of work commissioned for instance Mouton’s labels.
Age: 62 years
PPD: $3.66
Glowing Wine Intermission: The World’s Most Pricey Champagnes
In relation to standing, the flute overfloweth with Champagne, and the glowing wine public sale market is prospering with commodifiable bottles from excessive Champagne properties like Krug, Dom Pérignon and Roederer, each of which now recurrently produce bottlings that retail for 4 figures. And whereas we would quantify these efficient Champagnes’ quality-to-price ratios in PPD (and we’ll), celebratory bubbly requires every its private stemware and its private QPR metric for “pop” per buck.
How Many Bubbles Are in a Bottle of Champagne?
It’s a bizarre question that has in some way enthralled and confounded wine-loving sciencefolk for truly a very long time! And for a lot of of those last few a very long time, “specialists” have positioned their estimates between 15 million and 250 million bubbles per regular 750ml bottle of Champagne. Nevertheless in 2014, School of Reims researcher Gérard Liger-Belair pegged the approximate amount at a far more conservative 1 million bubbles per glass, citing the reality that numerous the carbon dioxide contained all through the Champagne manages to flee by the wine’s flooring, not at all to experience life as a tiny bubble the least bit. It’s chilling stuff.
Nevertheless we don’t care what variety of bubbles are in a bottle of Champagne. We care what variety of bubbles our buck buys. And with an estimated 1 million bubbles per glass and a few,957 drops of wine per 5-ounce serving, we get about 338 bubbles per drop. Exhausting to contemplate, nevertheless let’s droop our disbelief and save that for the prices to come back again.
Most Champagne collectors stick with the standard grandes marques, nevertheless a magnum of 2017 Champagne Avenue Foch purchased for $2.5 million in 2021. It’s disqualified for our features, as a result of the one-of-a-kind bottle was adorned with a Bored Ape cartoon and included one amongst 2021’s must-have imaginary inventive endeavors, a Bored Ape NFT. And whenever you’re questioning why you’ve not at all heard of Champagne Avenue Foch sooner than, it’s potential because of this 2017 magnum is the one fungible wine they seem to have ever made. Nevertheless whenever you’re curious, that’s a price per drop of $83.65, or 4 measly bubbles per buck.
No. 7: Perrier-Jouët Champagne 1874, Provided for $55,124
The historic Perrier-Jouët Champagne house is best acknowledged for its signature Art work Nouveau flower bottles, nevertheless in 1874, Art work Nouveau hadn’t occurred however. In precise truth, this bottle has no label the least bit, but it surely purchased for higher than $55,000 at a 2021 Christie’s public sale in London, proving it’s what’s inside that counts. And provenance: The bottle acquired right here direct from the cellars of Perrier-Jouët, the place it’d been quietly gathering mud and value for virtually 150 years.
Age: 147 years
PPD: $4.26
Bubbles per Buck: 79
No. 6: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1943, Provided for $68,200
This was one amongst many unusual bottles of DRC that had been auctioned by Sotheby’s in 2018, along with the most costly bottle ever purchased. Nevertheless this not-quite-as-expensive bottle nonetheless turned heads when anyone paid higher than $68,000 for the 1943 DRC RC.
Age: 75 years
PPD: $4.89
No. 5: Henri Jayer Vosne-Romanée Cros Parantoux 1978, Provided for $144,893 (1.5-liter bottle)
When the non-public wine cellar of late Burgundy winemaking legend Henri Jayer went up for public sale in 2018, collectors knew the paddles might be flying for a chance to amass Jayer’s ultimate bottles of Pinot Noir. A 15-magnum vertical spanning 1978 to 2001 fetched higher than $1.17 million, nonetheless it was the magnum of the 1978 Cros Parantoux, considered by many to be Jayer’s masterpiece, that earned one of the best price by amount, at $144,893 for a single magnum.
Age: 40 years
PPD: $5.02
No. 4: Château d’Yquem 1847, Provided for $71,675
Bordeaux’s Château d’Yquem Sauternes represents the top of collectible sweet wines. When this bottle purchased for higher than $70,000 at a 2004 Zachys sale in Beverly Hills, Calif., it turned the most costly bottle of non-red wine ever purchased, along with the most costly wine ever purchased in america.
Age: 157 years
PPD: $5.60
No. 3: Château d’Yquem 1811, Provided for $120,000
French sommelier Christian Vannequé, a 1976 Paris Tasting determine and longtime La Tour d’Argent somm, bought this bottle of “comet yr” dessert wine from Bordeaux’s Sauternes space for £75,000 in 2011, reportedly intent on consuming the bottle at La Tour d’Argent in 2017, in celebration of fifty years since his 1967 start on the Grand Award–worthwhile restaurant. Alas, Vannequé handed away in 2015.
Age: 200 years
PPD: $9.84
No. 2: Château Lafite 1869, Provided for $233,972
A Sotheby’s public sale of wines launched immediately from the cellars of Bordeaux’s Château Lafite Rothschild drew heavy bidding in Hong Kong in 2010, with a single bottle of the 1869 traditional stealing the current, setting a drop-for-drop world doc that may stand for virtually a decade.
Age: 141 years
PPD: $17.96
No. 1, the Undisputed Champ: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1945, Provided for $558,000 and $496,000
In 2018, Sotheby’s held an public sale of unusual wines consigned immediately from the non-public cellar of Burgundy winemaker Robert Drouhin. Among the many many many blockbuster public sale tons had been two bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti 1945. After some fevered bidding, New York developer and wine collector Rob Rosania claimed first one after which the alternative bottle of 1945 DRC RC, for $558,000 and $496,000, respectively. “That’s why I was proper right here,” Rosania suggested Wine Spectator’s Bruce Sanderson after the general public sale. “I believed it should go for $250,000 to $400,000.”
Age: 73 years
PPD: $39.92 and $35.48, respectively
And when you have a have a look at it which means … dang, I most probably would pay $40 for a method of 1945 DRC. In precise truth, let’s set a model new doc! The next time a sort of legendary bottles goes up in the marketplace, I’ll put up 50 bucks for a drop. Who’s with me?! We merely should make about 15,000 additional buddies ….
A Quick Reference Info to Large Wine Bottle Sizes
How enormous do wine bottles get? As enormous as a result of the reputations of the biblical kings they’re named for! Some are so huge that they’re troublesome if not unattainable for one particular person to lift, to not point out pour (anyone lastly wanted to invent explicit large-format bottle-pouring cradles).
The largest “standardized” wine bottle dimension, in keeping with Sotheby’s public sale dwelling, is the Melchizedek, or Midas, which holds 30 liters of Champagne, solely a tad higher than a Goliath, or Primat, which holds 27 liters.
Solomons preserve 20 liters, and it takes 18 liters to fill a Melchior. A Nebuchadnezzar holds 15 liters, adopted by a Balthazar at 12. A Salmanazar holds 9 liters, aka an atypical 12-bottle case’s value.
A Methuselah, aka an Imperial, holds 6 liters, whereas a Rehoboam properties 4.5. In Bordeaux, a Jeroboam moreover holds 4.5 liters, nonetheless it is merely 3 liters in Champagne and Burgundy (wouldn’t have a have a look at me). Three-liter bottles are additional commonly known as double magnums, being double the quantity of a 1.5-liter magnum, which is itself, the truth is, double the quantity of an atypical 750ml bottle of wine (which is double the quantity of a 375ml break up, or half-bottle).
And if we want to nest all these bottles into one grand Matryoshka (not a bottle establish … however), they’ll all match into the Maximus, a one-of-a-kind 130-liter bottle of Beringer Cabernet Personal Reserve 2001 that was auctioned for charity at Sotheby’s in 2004 for $55,800, or a PPD of two cents. What a purchase order!
Can You Really Drink 100-12 months-Earlier Wine?
Not all wine improves with age and, lastly not lower than, all wine turns to vinegar. Nevertheless a unusual few can evolve fantastically for a few years if not centuries—and chasing these once-in-a-lifetime magical experiences is part of the fun of wine accumulating. And whereas all wine lastly goes harmful, earlier wine won’t make you sick. The alcohol inside the wine serves as a preservative, stopping spoilage. In the end the wine will lose its fruit flavors and its coloration will fade to brown, nonetheless it won’t flip into harmful to model (though it will model horrible).
Examine Additional About Large Wine Accumulating and Auctions
• 7 Wine Storage Fundamentals: Proper right here’s what it is important to know to take care of your efficient wines at their best with out spending fairly a bit.
• Strategies to Buy Wine at Public sale: These 9 strategies will allow you place your bid with confidence.
• How (and Why) to Buy Wine Futures: We make clear the professionals and cons of paying up entrance for Bordeaux and completely different wines that haven’t been bottled however.
• Strategies to Promote Wine at Public sale: Our insider concepts for getting top-of-the-line deal in the event you put your collectible wine on the block.
• Flipping Wine on the Secondary Market: Extreme-value wines can tempt patrons to resell for a income, nevertheless vintners are cautious about allowing prospects on their mailing lists in the event that they’re merely in it for the money.
• Do Wine Funding Funds Ship? Treating wine as a liquid asset, these funding funds are increasingly more normal inside the U.S., nevertheless do they supply safe returns?