How much would you be prepared to pay for a bottle of wine?
If you prefer to cast a critical eye at the shelves in the local supermarket in the hope of bagging a bargain, you are not alone. Yet some wine aficionados are prepared to pay eye-watering sums of money to secure a rare bottle for their extensive collections.
South Africa’s esteemed Steenberg estate recently announced that their second vintage Magna Carta, an iconic white wine, would retail at R440 (approximately 46€) per bottle. This is a handsome sum for most South Africans, who are accustomed to paying very low prices for wines that are, by anybody’s standards, quite superb. However, compared to some, even a case of Steenberg’s Magna Carta would seem a bargain.
The most expensive wine in the world is the 1787 Chateau Lafite, which would set you back an astounding $160,000 (or approximately 115,000€), should you be sufficiently lucky to find one of these prized bottles. As this vintage’s rarity value increases, so its price is guaranteed to soar still further.
If you can’t afford the 1787 Chateau Lafite, then the 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild is available at a comparatively modest $114,614 (82,500€).
Like South Africa, Spain has a well-deserved reputation for producing wine that is both excellent and affordable. Most Spanish supermarkets offer a wide choice of inexpensive bottles, whose price tag belies their quality. To find Spain’s most expensive wine one should look to the famous wine-producing area of Ribera del Duero and the Vega Sicilia estate.
By world standards the wine produced by this esteemed company is quite reasonalby priced, but a bottle of 1940 Vega Sicilia Gran Reserva can attract sums of around 1,100€. Experts regard Vega Sicilia’s Unico as one of Spain’s best and bottles typically sell for 175€ to 300€, depending on vintage, confirming that Spanish wine is typically affordable and good.
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