The 20 Most Expensive Wines Sold at Auction in 2026 So Far
Updated to 22 September 2026
At the very top of the fine wine auction market in 2026, one name has been almost impossible to escape.
Of the 20 most expensive individual wines sold so far this year, 18 were produced by Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Every wine in the Top 20 is Burgundy. Seventeen were sold by Acker. Sixteen came in formats larger than a standard 75cl bottle, while 15 were three litres or larger.
The numbers make the concentration striking. Across the six major auction houses covered by our data, Acker, Bonhams, Christie’s, Hart Davis Hart, Sotheby’s and Zachys, there were 121 sales containing 84,550 lots between the start of the year and 22 September. Of those, 80,630 lots sold. Yet when we narrow the field to the very highest individual prices, the result is overwhelmingly DRC, Burgundy and large formats.
There is also one enormous outlier. A single bottle of 1945 Romanée-Conti sold for US$812,500 in March, more than two and a half times the US$325,000 realised by the wine in second place. It was not simply another rare bottle changing hands. It was the same bottle that had sold for US$558,000 at Sotheby’s in 2018, when it set the previous world record. Its 2026 sale lifted that price by around 46% in nominal terms and established a new record for the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction.
That result says something important about the upper end of the market. Provenance is not a footnote here. For the rarest bottles it can become part of the asset itself. The 1945 has a traceable history back to the personal cellar of Robert Drouhin, comes from a production of just 600 bottles and was the final Romanée-Conti vintage before the vineyard was replanted following phylloxera. It is wine, history and provenance wrapped into one object.
Format is the other unmistakable theme. Nine of the Top 20 are six-litre methuselahs. Five are three-litre jeroboams. There is a magnum, a full barrel and just four standard 75cl bottles. Large formats have always had a scarcity premium, but the 2026 results show how pronounced that becomes when an already scarce wine such as Romanée-Conti or La Tâche is combined with an unusual bottle size, original packaging and strong provenance.
There are exceptions to the DRC story, but even those reinforce the point. A full barrel of 2023 Vosne-Romanée offered directly by Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair sits third, while a single 75cl bottle of Domaine Leroy Musigny 2015 is seventeenth. Both are wines where supply at this level is exceptionally constrained, and both arrived at auction with something beyond the liquid itself: the Liger-Belair barrel was an unprecedented direct-from-the-domaine offering, while the Leroy established a new auction record for a single bottle from the domaine.
There is one important caveat. These results should not be taken as evidence that every corner of the fine wine market is moving at the same pace. The very top of an auction market behaves differently from more conventional trading. These auction results concern some of the rarest and most provenance-sensitive bottles in existence.
If anything, the Top 20 suggests a market that is highly selective. When rarity, provenance, producer, vintage and format line up, collectors are still prepared to compete very aggressively.
How the ranking works
This ranking covers wine auctions held between 1 January and 22 September 2026 by Acker, Bonhams, Christie’s, Hart Davis Hart, Sotheby’s and Zachys. Spirits, mixed assortments, verticals and lots containing more than one wine or vintage have been excluded.
Prices are ranked by the value of the individual physical container rather than converted to a 75cl equivalent. One magnum, jeroboam, methuselah or barrel therefore counts as one unit. This deliberately makes it a ranking of the most expensive individual objects to change hands, rather than a comparison of price per litre.
The realised price includes the buyer’s premium. GBP and US dollar conversions use the relevant ECB reference rate on the auction date, or the preceding business day where required. For auctions conducted in another currency, the original auction currency is also shown. Where realised US dollar values are equal, the ordering from the underlying dataset has been retained.
Romanée-Conti 1945, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Bottle (75cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £487,345 / US$650,000
Realised including premium: £609,181 / US$812,500
There is a substantial gap between this and everything else on the list, and with good reason. Acker’s La Paulée auction generated more than US$25 million and 460 new world records, but it was this single 75cl bottle that defined the sale. At US$812,500, it became the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction.
The provenance is extraordinary. The bottle originally came from Robert Drouhin’s personal cellar and had already made history when Sotheby’s sold it for US$558,000 in 2018. Only around 600 bottles of Romanée-Conti were produced in 1945, the final vintage before the vineyard was replanted. It is also notable that the most expensive wine of 2026 is one of only four standard 75cl bottles in the Top 20. It did not need a large format to make it rare.
La Tâche 1971, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £194,938 / US$260,000
Realised including premium: £243,673 / US$325,000
A six-litre methuselah of La Tâche 1971 took second place and established a new world record for the wine and format. It was part of what Acker described as one of the greatest DRC offerings it had handled, a 72-lot collection assembled over three decades and containing La Tâche 1971 in several formats alongside Romanée-Conti stretching back to the 1940s.
La Tâche is itself a monopole of DRC, covering just over six hectares. The domaine records production of 17,753 bottles for the 1971 vintage. A methuselah contains the equivalent of eight standard bottles, but surviving examples in this format are naturally only a tiny fraction of that original production.
Vosne-Romanée 2023, Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair
Burgundy Pièce (nominally 22,800cl / 228 litres)
Auction: Acker, Hong Kong, 6 June 2026
Hammer: £144,079 / US$194,032 / HK$1,520,000
Realised including premium: £180,098 / US$242,540 / HK$1,900,000
The most unusual entry in the Top 20 is not yet in bottle. Acker offered an entire barrel of 2023 Vosne-Romanée directly from Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair as part of a bicentennial celebration of the family’s ownership of La Romanée. It was the first time this particular opportunity had been offered publicly and became the highest-priced lot in Acker’s HK$47 million June Hong Kong auction.
A traditional Burgundy pièce is nominally around 228 litres. For the successful bidder, Acker specified a final allocation of 234 bottles and 27 magnums, equivalent to 216 litres of bottled wine, complete with personalised labels and wooden cases. The buyer was even given the option of retaining the barrel itself. It is difficult to imagine a clearer example of provenance: rather than tracing a wine back to the producer, the successful bidder effectively bought it before it had left.
Romanée-Conti 2006, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Acker, CXIV, Hong Kong, 21, 22 and 24 January 2026
Hammer: £114,635 / US$153,900 / HK$1,200,000
Realised including premium: £143,294 / US$192,375 / HK$1,500,000
Acker began its Asian auction season with an HK$80 million sale in Hong Kong, and this six-litre Romanée-Conti 2006 was its leading lot. DRC occupied nine of the sale’s ten highest positions, with large formats dominating the results.
The methuselah came from the Spectacular Collection of the Northern Star, which contained 34 DRC jeroboams and methuselahs that Acker said had been purchased on release. Half of those large-format bottles went on to establish new world records. Romanée-Conti itself covers only 1.814 hectares, and the domaine records a harvest of 5,546 bottles in 2006. A single six-litre bottle from that production is a very different proposition from an already scarce 75cl example.
La Tâche 1999, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £112,464 / US$150,000
Realised including premium: £140,580 / US$187,500
The 1999 La Tâche was represented across an extraordinary range of formats in Acker’s La Paulée collection, but the six-litre methuselah was the standout individual bottle. It realised US$187,500 and established a new world record.
The domaine records 16,640 bottles harvested from La Tâche in 1999. In this auction alone, collectors could compare standard bottles, magnums, three separate jeroboams and the methuselah, creating a rare demonstration of how dramatically format scarcity can affect the price of the same wine and vintage.
Romanée-Conti 1999, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Jeroboam (300cl)
Auction: Hart Davis Hart, Finest & Rarest Wines, Chicago livestream, 12 to 13 March 2026
Hammer: £97,095 / US$130,000
Realised including premium: £116,029 / US$155,350
Hart Davis Hart’s first major appearance in the Top 20 came from a three-litre jeroboam of Romanée-Conti 1999. The bottle sold for US$155,350 against a pre-sale estimate of US$90,000 to US$140,000, establishing a world record. The wider auction realised almost US$9 million, exceeded its high estimate and sold every lot offered.
Romanée-Conti’s recorded production for the 1999 vintage was 6,917 bottles, already microscopic on a global scale. A jeroboam represents four standard bottles in one container, and the combination of a celebrated vintage, DRC’s smallest and most famous vineyard and a scarce original large format made this one of the year’s defining US results.
La Tâche 1990, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Sotheby’s, Finest & Rarest Wines | Featuring La Tâche 1990 Methuselah, New York, 3 to 16 September 2026
Hammer: £81,749 / US$110,000
Realised including premium: £102,186 / US$137,500
Sotheby’s did not hide the star of its September New York sale. The auction was built around this bottle, with the La Tâche 1990 methuselah occupying lot one and appearing in the title of the sale itself. Its estimate was US$70,000 to US$100,000, meaning the US$110,000 hammer had already cleared the upper estimate before premium was added.
The 1990 vintage produced 24,071 bottles of La Tâche according to DRC’s own records, but very few would ever have existed as six-litre methuselahs. This bottle also provides an interesting comparison with another 1990 methuselah further down the ranking, sold by Acker only five months earlier.
Romanée-Conti 1943, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Bottle (75cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £82,474 / US$110,000
Realised including premium: £103,092 / US$137,500
The second standard-sized bottle to appear in the ranking is another piece of Romanée-Conti history. The 1943 sat immediately alongside the record-breaking 1945 in the La Paulée collection and also came with exceptional provenance from the personal cellar of Robert Drouhin.
Its US$137,500 realised price established a new world record for the vintage according to Acker. In an auction where six-litre and three-litre DRC bottles occupied many of the leading positions, a single 75cl bottle reaching the same price as a methuselah of 1996 Romanée-Conti demonstrates just how heavily age, provenance and historical scarcity can weigh in the market.
Romanée-Conti 1971, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Magnum (150cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £82,474 / US$110,000
Realised including premium: £103,092 / US$137,500
At just 150cl, this 1971 Romanée-Conti is modestly sized by the standards of the Top 20, but its rarity is formidable. DRC records production of only 5,294 bottles for the vintage, and Acker’s magnum established a new world record at US$137,500.
It came from the same remarkable La Paulée collection as the 1943 and 1945 bottles, assembled over roughly 30 years from trusted collectors, merchants and leading auction houses before being kept in professional storage. The result is another reminder that large-format value is not purely about volume. A magnum can command an enormous premium when the underlying wine is sufficiently scarce and the provenance is sufficiently strong.
Romanée-Conti 1996, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £82,474 / US$110,000
Realised including premium: £103,092 / US$137,500
A six-litre 1996 Romanée-Conti completed the three-way tie at US$137,500 within the upper reaches of Acker’s March sale. Unlike the 1943 bottle and 1971 magnum, Acker did not identify this result as a new world record, but its inclusion among the sale’s leading lots shows just how strongly the market was rewarding DRC in exceptional formats.
The domaine records 6,101 bottles harvested from Romanée-Conti in 1996. With a methuselah holding the equivalent of eight 75cl bottles, the number originally produced in this format would have been extremely small compared with an already limited vintage production.
Romanée-Conti 1942, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Bottle (75cl)
Auction: Acker, September U.S. auction, 9 September 2026
Hammer: £66,348 / US$90,000
Realised including premium: £82,934 / US$112,500
More than six months after the extraordinary La Paulée results, another wartime Romanée-Conti rose to the top of an Acker sale. The 1942 bottle led the auction at US$112,500, ahead of a 1949 La Tâche magnum at US$81,250. Seven of the auction’s ten most expensive lots were DRC.
There are no comparable production figures on DRC’s current published tables for vintages this old, but that absence almost becomes part of the story. At more than 80 years of age, surviving bottles with auction-worthy provenance are inherently scarce. Once again, the highest-priced lot was a conventional 75cl bottle rather than a large format, showing that sufficiently mature Romanée-Conti can overturn the broader size trend.
La Tâche 1999, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Jeroboam (300cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £67,479 / US$90,000
Realised including premium: £84,348 / US$112,500
The first of three individual three-litre La Tâche 1999 jeroboams in the Top 20 realised US$112,500. All three came from the same extraordinary DRC collection, all were presented in original wooden cases, and all were offered within a few lots of one another.
That makes the trio particularly interesting from a market perspective. Rather than comparing different auctions months apart, collectors effectively set three prices for the same wine, vintage and format in the same room. This first example was the strongest, while the other two each realised US$106,250.
La Tâche 1999, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Jeroboam (300cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £63,730 / US$85,000
Realised including premium: £79,662 / US$106,250
The second of the three La Tâche 1999 jeroboams finished only US$6,250 behind lot 3139. That degree of consistency is noteworthy for objects whose condition and individual history can often create significant variation.
All three jeroboams were originally estimated at US$45,000 to US$60,000, making the eventual results particularly strong. Even before buyer’s premium, the US$85,000 hammer price was comfortably above the original high estimate.
La Tâche 1999, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Jeroboam (300cl)
Auction: Acker, La Paulée Auction, New York, 26 to 28 March 2026
Hammer: £63,730 / US$85,000
Realised including premium: £79,662 / US$106,250
Lot 3140 matched lot 3141 exactly at a US$85,000 hammer and US$106,250 realised price. Taken together, the three jeroboams realised US$325,000, an unusually concentrated burst of demand for one vintage and format.
The comparison becomes even more interesting alongside the six-litre methuselah at number five. The same 1999 La Tâche in twice the bottle size realised US$187,500. These are not clean price-per-litre relationships, nor should they be. They show the collector premium attached to the scarcity of an individual format.
La Tâche 1990, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Acker, The Devine Collection, Delaware, 17 April 2026
Hammer: £59,112 / US$80,000
Realised including premium: £73,890 / US$100,000
Acker made this six-litre La Tâche one of the headline lots in the Devine Collection, a 1,090-lot single-owner sale built from the personal cellar of Brian Devine. The catalogue ranged across Burgundy, Bordeaux, California and Spain, but lot 100, a methuselah of 1990 La Tâche in its original wooden case, was among its clearest trophy bottles.
There is also a useful direct comparison higher up this list. Sotheby’s sold another 1990 La Tâche methuselah in September for US$137,500. That 37.5% difference over five months should not be read as a simple rise in the value of the wine. At this level, condition, provenance, presentation, timing and the bidders competing on the day can all materially influence the final price.
Montrachet 2004, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Acker, CXIV, Hong Kong, 21, 22 and 24 January 2026
Hammer: £57,318 / US$76,950 / HK$600,000
Realised including premium: £71,647 / US$96,188 / HK$750,000
The highest-ranked white wine in the Top 20 is one of DRC’s rarest productions in one of its rarest formats. This 2004 Montrachet methuselah sold for HK$750,000 and set a new world record during Acker’s January Hong Kong auction.
DRC owns just 0.6759 hectares of Montrachet. Its own records show only 3,640 bottles harvested in 2004, substantially less than the already tiny production of Romanée-Conti in most years. A six-litre bottle therefore sits at the extreme end of an extremely constrained wine. It was another member of the Northern Star collection, where the concentration of DRC large formats proved one of the defining features of the sale.
Musigny 2015, Domaine Leroy
Bottle (75cl)
Auction: Hart Davis Hart, A Celebration of Burgundy, Chicago livestream, 13 to 15 May 2026
Hammer: £59,215 / US$80,000
Realised including premium: £70,762 / US$95,600
The only Domaine Leroy in the Top 20 is also one of its most significant results. A single 75cl bottle of 2015 Musigny from the Orion Collection realised US$95,600, which Hart Davis Hart described as the highest price ever achieved at auction for a single bottle of Domaine Leroy. Its US$80,000 hammer was far beyond a pre-sale high estimate of US$30,000.
Domaine Leroy owns only around 0.27 hectares of Musigny, making production exceptionally small even by Burgundy standards. The wider three-day HDH sale was itself formidable: all 3,563 lots sold, generating US$14.66 million from more than 1,000 bidders. In a ranking dominated by large formats, the fact that this is an ordinary 75cl bottle makes its position particularly telling.
La Tâche 2002, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Acker, CXIV, Hong Kong, 21, 22 and 24 January 2026
Hammer: £53,496 / US$71,820 / HK$560,000
Realised including premium: £66,871 / US$89,775 / HK$700,000
The final three positions in the ranking all came from Acker’s January Hong Kong sale and all realised HK$700,000. The first is this six-litre 2002 La Tâche, another of the large-format bottles from the Northern Star collection.
DRC records 17,343 bottles of La Tâche harvested in 2002. The wine is one of the domaine’s two wholly owned red grand cru monopoles, and the move from a standard bottle to a methuselah takes an already limited production into a much narrower collecting category.
Romanée-Conti 2000, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Jeroboam (300cl)
Auction: Acker, CXIV, Hong Kong, 21, 22 and 24 January 2026
Hammer: £53,496 / US$71,820 / HK$560,000
Realised including premium: £66,871 / US$89,775 / HK$700,000
A three-litre jeroboam of Romanée-Conti 2000 shared the HK$700,000 realised price. It was part of a remarkable sequence of lots 1580 to 1582 that offered large-format Romanée-Conti from 2000, 2004 and 2006, culminating in the six-litre 2006 bottle at number four in this ranking.
The domaine records a production of 6,286 bottles of Romanée-Conti in 2000. Four standard bottles’ worth of wine in a single original jeroboam is therefore considerably scarcer than the volume alone implies, particularly after more than a quarter of a century of consumption and movement through private cellars.
Montrachet 2000, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Methuselah (600cl)
Auction: Acker, CXIV, Hong Kong, 21, 22 and 24 January 2026
Hammer: £53,496 / US$71,820 / HK$560,000
Realised including premium: £66,871 / US$89,775 / HK$700,000
Closing the Top 20 is another six-litre DRC Montrachet, this time from the 2000 vintage. Like the La Tâche 2002 and Romanée-Conti 2000 above it, the bottle realised HK$700,000 during the January Hong Kong sale. It also means that two of the three white wines represented at the very top of the 2026 auction market are DRC Montrachet methuselahs from the same collection.
The numbers behind the wine make its appearance understandable. DRC’s Montrachet holding is only 0.6759 hectares and the domaine records 3,541 bottles harvested in 2000. A surviving six-litre example in original packaging occupies a very narrow intersection of producer, vineyard, vintage and format scarcity.
What the Top 20 tells us about the market
Perhaps the most important conclusion is what this ranking does not tell us. Twenty exceptional auction lots cannot describe the fine wine market as a whole. These are outliers by definition, and the dominance of Acker, which sold 17 of the 20, also reflects the extraordinary material it happened to bring to market this year. Nine of the Top 20 came from its La Paulée auction alone.
What they do provide is a clear view of where competition becomes most intense when money is almost secondary to availability.
DRC remains the dominant name. Burgundy takes all 20 positions. Large formats account for 80% of the list. Provenance appears repeatedly, whether it is the Robert Drouhin history of the 1945 and 1943 Romanée-Conti, the Northern Star collection’s bottles purchased on release, a single-owner cellar such as the Devine Collection, or wine offered directly from Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair.
The standard 75cl bottles that break through are arguably just as revealing. A 1945 Romanée-Conti at US$812,500, a 1943 at US$137,500, a 1942 at US$112,500 and a 2015 Domaine Leroy Musigny at US$95,600 did not require size to create scarcity. The bottles themselves were sufficiently exceptional.
For collectors and investors, that distinction matters. At the top of the market, the name on the label is only the beginning. Vintage, format, condition, storage history, original packaging and provenance can transform the value of two ostensibly identical wines. In the rarest cases, a bottle develops its own history and becomes an individual collectible rather than simply another example of the wine.
That is perhaps the clearest message from the auction market in 2026 so far. Buyers have not simply been paying more for Burgundy. They have been paying extraordinary prices for bottles that are extraordinarily difficult to replace.
