Domaine de la Romanee-Conti broke the world record for the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction last weekend, when a bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti sold for £424,000 – and a second for £377,000. The sale smashed the previous record held by a bottle of 1869 Lafite Rothschild, which sold for £176,235.
TV presenter Piers Morgan tweeted soon after that the sale was “ridiculous”, and that “you can get 20 cases of Latour ’61 for that”. But as Liv-ex points out, Morgan is wrong. Looking at the above chart, it’s clear you could purchase around 105 bottles – or nine cases – for the average price of one record-breaking DRC lot.
Alternatively, you could buy around 133 bottles of Petrus 2010, or 10 bottles of the 2005 and another ten 1990 DRC vintages. However, Liv-ex does note that “direct comparisons are difficult to make at this level. Enthusiasts will point to the ‘perfect provenance’ of these bottles, and their great historical significance.”