10 most expensive bottles of wine ever sold

Wine price can be a contentious issue. Some people balk at wine costing more than R50 a bottle, and it can take some convincing to try something outside of what we are used to on the supermarket shelf.  There are however some people that don’t see price as an obstacle when purchasing wine. So, we trawled Newluxuryitems.com and found this list they had compiled of the 10 most expensive bottles of wine sold (as of April 2009). See the article here. All in all I think SA wines are pretty well priced in comparison to these!

01. Chateau Lafite 1787 : The bottle of wine that fetched the highest ever price was Chateau Lafite, 1787. It fetched a price of $160,000 at Christie’s London in 1985. The wine was bought for Forbes collection. The specialty of the bottle is that it bears Thomas Jefferson’s initials etched on the glass.

02. Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1945 : Jeroboam Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945 fetched the second highest price ever. The wine was considered to be one among the highly admired vintages of the 20th century. It was sold for a whopping $114,614 at Christie’s London in 1997.

03. Chateau d Yquem 1784 : The wine bottle of 1784 Chateau d’Yquem stands third. It was sold at Christie’s London in 1986 for an amazing sum of $56,588. This bottle also bears the initials of Thomas Jefferson.

04.Massandra Sherry : Now comes the turn of the 1775 Sherry from the Massandra Collection, sold at Sotheby’s London in 2001. It fetched a price of $43,500. Massandra winery was highly admired in the Czarist Russia. Massandra’s cellar contains umpteen bottles (close to a million) of both Russian and Western European wines. This Sherry was the oldest among the Western European variety.

05. Romanee Conti : At the fifth place stands set of eight bottles of Romanée-Conti, DRC 1990. The set was sold for $224,900 (or $28,112 per bottle) at Sotheby’s London in 1996.

06. Le Montrachet : Sixth in line is Le Montrachet, DRC 1978. Seven bottles of it were sold at Sotheby’s New York in 2001 at $23,929 per bottle.

07. Romanée-Conti DRC 1990 : Romanée-Conti, DRC 1990 is in the seventh place. 6 magnums of the wine were sold at Zachy’s New York at $5,800 each.

08. Screaming Eagle 1994 : At the eighth spot stands three bottles of Screaming Eagle 1994, sold at Christie’s Los Angeles in 2000. The price fetched was $3,833 per bottle.

09. Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1982: Ninth in line is fifty cases (six hundred bottles) of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1982. The sale was made at Christie’s/Zachy’s New York in 1997 for an astonishing price of $420,000 ($700 per bottle).

10. Screaming Eagle Cab 1992 : Let us now come to the tenth and the penultimate wine of the day. Though this wine should have ranked first in terms of price, its value was somehow overshadowed as it was auctioned for charity. Imperial of Screaming Eagle Cab 1992 was sold at the Napa Valley Wine Auction in 2000 for an astronomical sum of $500,000. The wine as purchased by Cisco Systems executive Chase Bailey. Though technically it had fetched the highest ever price, but much of its price has to be discounted as it was meant for charitable purposes.