The most expensive commercially sold bottle of white wine was recently purchased by restaurant owner and private collector Christian Vanneque, who paid an impressive £75,000 ($123,000) for it. The rare bottle is a 1811 Château d’Yquem, containing a fine wine that is said to taste like “liquefied crème brûlée”. Still excellent after 200 years (unlike red wines of the same age), the wine was produced in the year that is known as the “comet year” among oenophiles. They say that the appearance of a comet in 1811 influenced that year’s grape crops resulting in extraordinary wines.
Vanneque bought the bottle from The Antique Wine Company, at the Ritz, London. He declared that he definitely intends to drink the wine, adding “I’m not a fancy collector. I’m not rich. I work very hard. This is important that it’s not connected to investing. I’m a sommelier. Wine is for drinking”. But since a special wine like this needs a special occasion to be drunk, the French wine specialist intends to only open the bottle in 2017, when he’ll celebrate his 50th anniversary as a sommelier.
He even knows who will be there with him to enjoy the $15,000-a-glass wine: his wife, his brother, two of his best friends, Mr. Steven Williams, MD of The Antique Wine Company and chef sommelier David Ridgway, the owner of La Tour d’Argent restaurant in Paris.
