Wine Club
Hey, sweetie
The author salutes the 1847 vintage of the legendary sweet wine from the Gironde, Château d’Yquem, a bottle of which recently became the most expensive wine ever sold in the United States and is now the most expensive white wine in the world
The author salutes the 1847 vintage of the legendary sweet wine from the Gironde, Chateau d'Yquem, a bottle of which recently became the most expensive wine ever sold in the United States and is now the most expensive white wine in the world
Yquem 1847. Attached to this fabled name and date is one of the most iconic events of the 19th century: how a Russian grand duke paid the highest price ever recorded at the time for one tonneau (that is, 900 litres or 1,200 bottles or 100 cases) of Yquem from one of the greatest vintages of the century.
The bare bones of the story are that Grand Duke Constantine, the brother of Tsar Alexander II, visited Bordeaux in 1859 and bought one tonneau of this wine, which was bottled into gold-engraved crystal decanters. The price was 20,000 francs. To put this price into context, Yquem had sold two thirds of the superb 1858 vintage en primeur for 3,500 francs per tonneau and later sold it for 10,000 francs per tonneau. And when Baron James de Rothschild bought Lafite in 1868, six casks of the exceptional 1865 were sold for 3,000 francs each (that is, 12,000 francs per tonneau).
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