On Apr 20, 9:01 pm, "st.helier" > wrote:
> Hmmm - Have you a spare $US500,000 hanging around?
>
> Well, that will get you 27 Bottles of DRC
>
> http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/stor...ectid=10505266

The client bought 12 bottles of Romanee Conti 1978, two bottles of the
1961, 1966, 1996 and 2003 and single bottles of the 1981, 1990, 1992,
1995, 1999, 2001 and 2002.

According to the May 2008 Decanter wine price watch, a case of 1978
Romanee Conti goes for about 32992 pounds at auction. This is the most
expensive vintage in the lot. The 1985 goes for a bit more at 33100
Pounds, but there was none of this in the lot. Most of the single
bottles of other vintages sell for much less. Thus I would think about
70000 Pounds or about US$150000 would have been a generous bid for
this set of wines. The person who purchased the wine is a Chinese
billionaire, who has bought a case of Petrus 1982 etc in the past. For
someone with so much money, it is likely worth their time to greatly
overspend if something becomes available that they want. It might have
taken a year or two to obtain about 2 cases of top years of Romanee-
Conti at auction since these wines come up seldom. I wonder if the
buyer likes Burgundy, or if he only buys for face. Hopefully he enjoys
fine Burgundy. Purchases from the far east, of which this is one of
the more extreme examples, are one reason that Romanee-Conti,
Petrus,etc have become so expensive.