Bottle Stocks

Fine Wine Collectors May Be Waking Up to the Investment Potential of Burgundy and Other Wine Regions of the World, but the First Growth Châteaux Don’t Look Like Shedding Their Blue-chip Aura Anytime Soon.

- Chrissie Mcclatchie

September 2018 saw US auction house Hart Davis Hart Wine Co. herald its autumn sales season with an auction of fine and rare wines. Achieving a 100 per cent clearance rate, sales totalled US$16.7 million. The hammer fell at US$113,525 for the top lot: six magnums of 1996 Montrachet from Burgundy’s Domaine de la RomanéeConti, a white wine that revered critic Robert Parker had described in his publication The Wine Advocate as “terribly refined, bracing, satin-textured … and mind-blowingly long in the finish”. While a figure approaching US$1,576 for a 125ml glass may seem incredible, for those involved in the fine wine market these kind of numbers are no surprise, especially when the most expensive wine producer in the world is involved.

That’s the title DRC (as Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is commonly referred to) is universally acknowledged to hold. For the past five years, DRC has been the top-selling estate at Sotheby’s, achieving auction sales of US$11.6 million in 2017. It’s a figure higher than that of the second, third and fourth-ranked wines combined, which just happen to be a trio of the most esteemed Bordeaux producers in the world: Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Pétrus and Château Mouton Rothschild.

The demand for DRC is nothing new: La Romanée dates back to the Middle Ages and by the 18th century it was already so highly prized that the estate was subject to a bidding war between the Marquise de Pompadour, Louis XV’s official chief mistress, and Louis-François de Bourbon, Prince of Conti. As its modern-day name suggests, the latter prevailed. Since the 19th century the property has been owned by two families and today only produces wine from eight Grand Cru vineyards, including two monopoles (areas controlled by a single winery): La Tâche and Romanée-Conti.