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With 700,000 Euros, a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti 1945 has set a new world record at the auction of the US auction house Acker. It comes from the legendary cellar of Burgundy winemaker Robert Drouhin and was sold in 2018 at Sotheby’s for 461,000 Euros. At that time, it was already the most expensive bottle of wine ever auctioned or sold. The special feature: It is the last vintage from ungrafted vines that had not fallen victim to the phylloxera. Only 600 bottles were produced at that time. Many connoisseurs believe that pre-phylloxera vines produced wines with unmatched depth and complexity that no longer exist today. John Kapon of Acker Wines described the 1945 DRC as "the greatest wine I have ever tasted." The vineyard was replanted in 1947.
A total of seven Burgundy collections with more than 3,700 lots were auctioned over the three-day auction. They achieved 21.6 million Euros. Highlights included a Methuselah bottle (six liters) of 1971 La Tâche and twelve bottles of 1999 Romanée-Conti in original packaging, each fetching 298,000 Euros. A Methuselah bottle of 1999 La Tâche in its own wooden case brought in 161,000 Euros. A case of six magnums of the bottle Domaine de la Romanée-Conti from the 2005 vintage achieved 140,000 Euros. Each 118,000 Euros was paid for a Methuselah DRC 1996, a bottle of DRC 1943, and a magnum 1971 Romanée-Conti. The most expensive white wine was the 2013 Chevalier-Montrachet from Domaine d’Auvenay. The bid for six bottles of this wine reached 108,000 Euros. A total of 460 new world record prices were achieved.
Acker Chairman John Kapon stated that the demand for Burgundy wines is at an all-time high, especially for old and rare bottles. Burgundy currently accounts for about 50 percent of the market, Bordeaux 20 percent, and California ten percent. According to him, Italy and the Rhône region each have about five percent market share.
(al; Image: Acker Wines)
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