How much is a 1971 bottle of Chateau Petrus wine worth?
A YOUNG Manhattan lawyer called Le Cirque recently to ask if one of his guests could bring two special wines to dinner and pay a corkage fee. The restaurant agreed, and the three dined that evening with their own wines, a 1970 Chambertin and a 1971 Chateau Latour. It was a resplendent experience — until the bill came. “I looked at the corkage fee and it was $100!” said the lawyer, who said he was so embarassed by the incident that he would speak only on the condition of anonymity. “I almost fell off my chair.” His guests encouraged him to complain, but he declined, reasoning that since he had not discussed the fee beforehand he had no right to quibble over it. “I sure learned an expensive lesson, though,” he said. Policies on corkage fees — the charge for opening and serving a wine carried in by a patron — can be as bewildering as the label of a Trockenbeerenauslese. Some establishments charge $10 to $15, others $25 to $30 and up, while many waive the fee altogether for regular patr
This legendary and extravagantly priced wine, from a prime vineyard on well-drained clay soil atop the Pomerol plateau, has for decades stood as the greatest example of Merlot in the world. The wine is extraordinarily creamy and thick but with the substantial tannic underpinning to ensure decades of development in bottle. The panoply of exotic aromas and flavors typically encompasses black raspberry, mulberry, iron, cocoa powder, truffle and expensive new oak. Apart from the notoriety (or is it fame) that accompanies Pétrus’ prices ($500/bottle for futures and more than $1,000/bottle for older vintages), the estate is also known for being one of the first in Bordeaux to embrace green-harvesting, a strategy for lowering yields while improving quality. Sources: http://www.wineaccess.
Pétrus is a red Bordeaux wine made mostly from merlot grapes. The small Petrus vineyard and the fact that all the grapes are picked by hand make it one of the most expensive wines in the world. According to Wine-Searcher.com, an unadulterated bottle on 1971 Petrus can sell from $1000 to more than $4000 dollars, depending on the particular variety. Sources: http://www.wine-searcher.
