A bottle of French wine from the personal collection of a revered wine maker recently shattered the record for the most expensive bottle ever sold at auction by fetching US$812,500 (AU$1.46 million), New York wine seller Acker announced Monday.
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Key Facts
- The bottle, a 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, is one of only about 600 ever produced and is a coveted collectable among historic wine connoisseurs.
- The previous world record for a wine sold at auction was set by a bottle of the same wine in 2018 that sold for $558,000, representing an almost 50% increase and “cementing the 1945 vintage as the most coveted bottle in the history of wine collecting,” Acker said in a statement.
- The record-setting bottle of Burgundy was originally sourced from the personal cellar of Robert Drouhin, who ran his family’s French wine house, Maison Joseph Drouhin, for almost 50 years and pioneered the Oregon wine industry.
- A representative for Acker would not say who purchased the bottle.
Key Background
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is an estate in Burgundy, France, made up of eight vineyards and takes its name from the most famous, Romanée-Conti. This vineyard produces only red wine (primarily from the pinot noir grape) and its creations are among the most expensive and sought after in the world. Romanée-Conti produces between 5,000 and 6,000 bottles of wine per year, but only about 600 were made of the 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.
Why Is The 1945 Domaine De La Romanée-Conti So Expensive?
This particular vintage is famous for being the last wine produced before Romanée-Conti replanted its oldest vines, which had survived through two world wars and represented nearly a century of Burgundy history. The vintage is also famous for being what wine aficionados call pre-phylloxera, meaning its grapes came from vines that were not altered to be resistant to phylloxera, an insect that destroyed a majority of European vineyards in the late 19th century. Many connoisseurs argue wine made from pre-phylloxera vines have an unmatched depth and complexity.
Tangent
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is one of the most dominant vineyards in terms of auction sales both in volume sold and prices achieved, according to Sotheby’s auction house. Wine from the producer alone accounted for 17% of Sotheby’s wine sales volume last year, more than double the next highest producer Pétrus at 7%. The vineyard holds the 2025 record for the most expensive lot sold at any auction house for the year—a 12-bottle lot of Romanée Conti 1990 sold in Hong Kong for $449,890.
This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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