The UK's Antique Wine Company (AWC) just started promoting the "The Great Antique Lafite Rothschild Collection" comprised of 48 bottles from 39 vintages (see full list and bottle sizes) including:
- 4 vintages from 1787-1799
- 21 vintages from the 1800s
- 11 from the 1900s (7 of which are 1982 or later)
- Plus 2000, 2002 and 2003
Expected sale price: $1 million to $3 million. If you're interested, visit this page and let them know as bidding/negotiations commences May 1, 2007.
Authenticity testing reaches news heights
While this seems like an amazing collection (although I wouldn't call the youngest 10 vintages "antique"), what caught my interest more than the wine and money involved was the proactive approach taken to verifying authenticity for which AWC should be applauded. See Decanter.com's story of today: "Most extensive collection of Chateau Lafite to be tested prior to sale."
I suppose it's not surprising given that the press has been full of stories about counterfeiting of wine. While most of us cannot afford to do nuclear isotope analysis to assess whether we bought the real thing, in this case, the expected sale price covers it.
What about the "chain of provenance"?
While I'm sure AWC is diligent in tracking the storage history and ownership of these bottles to the best of their ability, these details are not disclosed on the site or even referenced. The bottle glass and wine might be tested for age but what about whether any bottles were "cooked" by heat exposure sometime in the past 100-200 years?
The Decanter.com story only mentions that the wines were "assembled over the past two years from restaurants, hotels, and private cellars." Personally, I have varying degrees of confidence in all three of those categories of wine owner based on knowing the source, where they got the wine from, how it was stored, how long they've owned it etc.
No doubt some of these questions are impossible to answer given the age of many of the vintages. The assurance of a guarantee on the wine's condition is highly unlikely to be provided either. But then again, collections like this are a high stakes game and anyone playing it is sure to appreciate the risks.
P.S. The label image is from the Antique Wine Company web site.
