Most expensive bottles of wine sold at Sotheby's auction
What's the story
Two bottles of wine, made back in 1945 right after the end of the Second World War, have been sold at an auction for a total of just over $1mn, making them the most expensive bottles of wine ever sold. The auction, by Sotheby's in New York, saw three more wine bottles from 1937 sell for a total of $930,000. Here are the details.
1945 vintage
Details about the two bottles of 1945 vintage
The two bottles of 1945 vintage were among the 600 to be made by top Burgundy producer Romanee-Conti right after the Second World War. The lot notes described the wine as "rare and wonderful", "exotic...with seemingly everlasting power - a wine at peace with itself". Moments after the first bottle sold for a whopping $558,000, the second one was bought for $496,000.
1937 vintage
The bottles of 1937 vintage sold for $310,000 each
Meanwhile, the three bottles of 1937 vintage sold for an impressive $310,000 each. The bottles, both the 1945 vintage and the 1937 vintage, were being sold as part of a collection of 100 wine bottles from the personal cellar of wine producer Robert Drouhin. Nine of the 100 bottles attracted six figure sums, and the total collection sold for a whopping $7.3mn.
Records
All five bottles shattered previous records
The eye-popping sums commanded by the five bottles broke previous records of the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold. The previous record holder was a six-litre bottle Cheval-Blanc 1947, which was sold in Geneva in 2010 for $304,375. Meanwhile, the record for a standard-sized wine bottle was $233,000 - a 1869 vintage of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild that was sold in Hong Kong in 2010.