Most expensive wine in the world
Posted by: rodwsmith on 04 June 2011
Today I sold these two bottles, for consumption tonight.
A truly great vintage of the rarest wine in the world.
Well, it is his birthday.
Have a guess how much.
$2K
£20K
€12,500 ex-tax each to be precise.
I've tried this wine once in my life, many years ago, and not that vintage. Much as I love wine, I think I'd rather have twenty five grand. Still good luck to him. We've had a good sales week as a result.
Maybe he wanted to celebrate after buying the most expensive tool set in the world.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayI...mp;item=290569983872
That's one hell of a tool kit.
I bet you still find you haven't got the right spanner for the job though.
Perhaps a multi-millionaire or billionaire or squilionaire so what's 25k
But i need better value for money...
Friday morning I stocked up the cellar after my local wine merchant delivered 34 bottles of Chilean Red ~ at a cost of £209
Should last me into next year... just.
Rod, it was ages ago you recommended Chilean merlot to me, thanks again for that, still enjoying it : )
...and that tool kit on ebay is rubbish, doesn't even include a cork screw!
Debs
...and that tool kit on ebay is rubbish, doesn't even include a cork screw!
........or a cornflake magnet!
The difference between the most expensive wine in the world and the world's most expensive urine is only a matter of time. A short period of time during which thousands of children around the world die of malnutrition, easily preventable diseases and violence. I would like to be rich enough to afford wine like this but I pray I am never tempted. The difference between that wine and a £100 bottle would be lost on 99.9% of people - what's the point?
Where do we draw the line? If I could could afford an Aston Martin and a place in the South of France with a top of line Naim system I would surely go for it but only if I could donate a bunch of money to charity as well. It is not a question of being able to afford the wine it is a question of being morally justified. It is a personal thing - I would not like to see legislation is place to combat these kinds of excesses - one should be free to spend one's money how one wants. However, I am curious as to the mind set of anyone willing to spend this kind of money on a drink NO MATTER HOW RICH THEY ARE because undoubtedly they are spending it in order to buy a degree of happiness for themselves and maybe their guests but surely they would be happier donating that money so blind people in India could have thier cataracts removed so they can see their grand children for the first time or to sending street kids in brazil to school or put a roof over the head of orphans in the philippines who live on rubbish dumps and who make a living by sorting through trash 16 hours a day.
Obviously you could say the same thing to me if I had that Aston martin and place in the South of France and a top of line Naim system and you would be right - I'd have no defence at all. I love wine. I could seriously get into the study of it and the buying and selling of it. However, regardless of how rich I was (and I mean even if I were the richest man in the world) I would draw the line at say £500 for something very special for a very special day (certainly not my birthday) otherwise I can't imagine spending more than £100 on a regular basis. Maybe the person who bought the wine is a major philanthropist who gives millions to charity - I hope so.
Must not feed the troll.......
C.
Sniper may or may not have trolled in the past, but I don't see how you can characterise that last post that way. It seemed extremely reasonable to me.
........................surely they would be happier donating that money...................
Obviously you could say the same thing to me if I had a............... Naim system and you would be right ......................... I love wine..........................However, ........................ I can't imagine spending more than £100 on a regular basis.
Two points.
"They" might NOT be happier donating that money. Best not to make assumptions about how others feel.
A lot of relatively poor people (even in the UK) might assume that YOU would be happier donating the money you have spent on your hifi, or the £100 you are prepared to spend on a bottle of wine. I don't think they would be right in their assumption but i'd rather not have to make that presumption. Perhaps you could clarify.
Cheers
Don
Don,
You have quoted me out of context. I have already answered the points you raise in my original post. You just need to read more carefully.
Well it's certainly wee by now, and the money is, or will be, probably closer to getting donated to poor people in consequence as it trickles down the system.
It's the same money. If he gave all his away then someone else would be rich and he would be poor, but there wouldn't be any more money. Castigating the rich for spending it is not a solution to world poverty, in fact very possibly the reverse is true.
But haven't we been here before? More ridiculous I would think to spend $40 million on a Van Gogh painting that we now know doesn't look anything like what Van Gogh painted at the time, especially if you were only doing so as an investment. At least this bloke really likes wine.
Sniper
Strong stuff that touches an emotional cord with me although that is partly perhaps because I would not even spend £5 on a bottle of wine.
Curiously I see items of art being bought and sold in that sort of price range (and stratospherically higher of course) and don't feel the same emotions. Yet many of them are just 'bits of paper'. I'm more able to see intrinsic value in some art than the transient pleasure of a glass of wine.
Rod
Out of interest how does one sell that sort of wine without being able to allow them to taste it? Do you literally just have to buy it on reputation and provenence?
Bruce
At least this bloke really likes wine.
And that is the real point, he enjoys it, and can afford it. Like anything in life the price is only realistic if someone will pay it. Like anything at auction, you need two, or more, to drive the price up.
Anybody that wants to castigate him for it better take a long hard look at themselves first. The price of any piece of Naim hifi (such as a Nait 5i) will comfortably exceed the annual income of a fairly sizable percentage of this planets population.
By the same rules buying a couple of CDs a month is outrageous, as this would be £20/$30 a month. Listening on anything more than a windup radio would be indefensible.
We all choose what to do with our money, having a go at others that can afford more expensive items just shows up a shallow and twisted individual, trying to display piety whilst struggling with envy. Someone who should be pitied.
Quite a few friends of mine, other members of this forum, can afford systems I can only dream of owning. They are gracious with their time, and their invites, and always make me welcome. They don't shove it into other peoples faces like a Harry Enfield sketch. Taking the time to enjoy music is one of their pleasures, sharing that pleasure is a passion in itself.
My system is far more modest than many, but would still be looked on as ludicrous by the vast majority of the population, who could not comprehend that you can spend more on a hifi than you do on a car.(yep, done that) Or that some of the systems I get to sit in front of and enjoy can cost more than a house. So what?
Just as one can argue that a basic Ford, Vauxhall or whatever can take you down the motorway at the speed limit doesn't mean there is no market for the Ferrari or Rolls Royce. But there are still the sad individuals that would drag a key down the side of one just because they can't afford one, and don't see why someone else should be able to. They are the sad tossers in life that the planet would be better off without.
John
Sniper
Strong stuff that touches an emotional cord with me although that is partly perhaps because I would not even spend £5 on a bottle of wine.
Curiously I see items of art being bought and sold in that sort of price range (and stratospherically higher of course) and don't feel the same emotions. Yet many of them are just 'bits of paper'. I'm more able to see intrinsic value in some art than the transient pleasure of a glass of wine.
Rod
Out of interest how does one sell that sort of wine without being able to allow them to taste it? Do you literally just have to buy it on reputation and provenence?
Bruce
Hi Bruce
Assuming you like drinking wine, then your £5 limit is a bit self-punishing I think. Plenty of calculations on t'internet that show that if you spend 'only' a fiver on a bottle of wine, which is £4 after VAT, which is £2.19 after duty, then there was no more than around 40p on the actual fermented grape juice (once you strip out transport, bottle, label, cork, box, pallet, retailer margins and so on).
Having worked in a winery or several in my day, I think I could put you off 40p wine. Push a farmer - any farmer - to produce things only to a budget - and a ridiculous one at that, and you won't get quality. What you'll get is over-cropped, dilute grapes, with plenty of leaves, twigs, mud and insects thrown in, fermented hot (think cooked) which is the most rapid way to get the deepest colour and the most 'flavour' and pressed endlessly to extract every millilitre of liquid, made by people who largely couldn't give a toss about what you think of it. And if it comes from some countries there will also be a fairly hefty bolt of added chemicals (Sulphur Dioxide to excess, added tannins, acids and fruit enzymes) to cover up some of the above.
Personally, if that were my budget, I'd drink £10 bottles of wine half as frequently.
Quite a lot of the costs above are fixed, so - almost - a £10 bottle of wine could have £5.40's worth of wine in it (this is an exaggeration obviously - VAT is a %age - but you get my point).
Amazing that it is still the case that people will sometimes throw a dinner party and boast of how little they have spent on the wine. You wouldn't go back there if they boasted of how little they had spent on the meat or fish.
Sorry, don't mean to have a go, but I am sure there is a wine out there that could knock your socks off.
To answer your question, it is only by reputation. This vineyard produces 5000 bottles in a good year (and in a poor one they will throw away a lot of the fruit), and it is this rarity (600 cases really is not much to be available globally) that forces the prices up. It is a formidably well made wine which results in it needing at least 8 years in the bottle before it is really drinkable, and like all commodities this rarity + age combination mean people will pay what it costs. None for tasting, therefore...
It is not inconceivable that his consumption of 2 bottles of the 1999 will actually push the price of the remaining stocks on the market up tangibly (Irritatingly, the wealthy of China have recently 'dicsovered' Burgundy which is exacerbating this).
Cheers
Rod
^ Rod, provided you have some more to sell, I don't think you can be irritated!
Best, Chris
Ps. and yes, we have been here before
"the money is, or will be, probably closer to getting donated to poor people in consequence as it trickles down the system."
These words aren't worth the energy it took you to type them Rod. Buy what you want, but don't lean on such bullsh*t.
Probably not an argument that can usefully be had on this forum. Interesting to note though, the venom Sniper's moderate, balanced and obviously sincere post has attracted. "Shallow and twisted individual" indeed!
David,
Perhaps you could re-read your post and see the hypocrisy in it.
Spell it out for me Rod. It'll work better.
Don,
You have quoted me out of context. I have already answered the points you raise in my original post. You just need to read more carefully.
Nope,
I have trimmed your post down to its bare bones. You are happy to have expensive hifi kit and drink good quality wines. Others would be justified to question your moral judgement in just the same way as you have judged others.
Cheers
Don
Absolutely Don.
Chris
Don, Chris,
If you read Sniper's post again, I think you'll find he makes pretty much the same point.