Record wine 'undrinkable'

Press, 7 December 1985, Page 10

Record wine 'undrinkable'

NZPA-PA London A single bottle of a 1787 French claret was sold at a London auction yesterday for a world record price of £ 105,000 (?NZ276,000). But experts say that the wine would turn to vinegar immediately the cork was pulled. The sum paid for the bottle of Chateau Lafite engraved with the initials of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, broke all records nearly eight times over. A spokesman for the auctioneer Christie’s, described the price as “beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.”

The previous world record for a bottle of wine, Christie’s said, was SUS3B,OOO (?NZ67,054) paid in October, 1984, at a wine auction in Dallas, Texas, for a bottle of 1870 MoutonRothschild.

The London buyer was Christopher Forbes, aged 35, third son of Malcolm Forbes, who publishes the leading American business magazine which bears his name.

Within hours the bottle was expected to be heading, for the United States by private jet to be added to an exhibition of Presidential memorabilia at the “Forbes” magazine’s Fifth Avenue offices in New York.

Christopher Forbes said that it would be given pride of place on a table made for Thomas Jefferson, lent to the exhibition by the Maryland Historical Society.

“This bottle will not be drunk — not by its current owners anyway,”, he said. He said that he would celebrate in rather less grand style with a bottle of more recent Chateau Lafite. The record-breaking wine, in its original handblown amber green glass bottle, was sent for sale by a West German music publisher, Hardy Rodenstock, who has other bottles marked with Thomas Jefferson’s initials. No-one knows how Thomas Jefferson’s bottle of Chateau Lafite came to be in Europe, although it is

Known that he greatly admired French culture and bought many fine French wines. Experts said that the world record price was even more staggering because the wine was definitely not suitable for drinking. A wine of that age would

almost certainly oxidise within a few seconds of the cork being pulled, making it undrinkable, they said. The experts said that at £ 17,500 (?NZ46,000) a glass - almost £3OOO (SNZ7BB6) a sip — a drinker would have between eight and 10 seconds to try the wine before the action of the air

caused it to oxidise, even assuming it had survived its 198 years in the bottle. “A wine this old would taste like vinegar within a few seconds, although there are records of wines 100 years or more surviving well in the bottle and retaining good characteristics,” they said.