In his recent Wall Street Journal column, Jay McInerney returned to the wines of Bordeaux. They might not be trendy but they are still very drinkable (such as a $28 bottle of Chateau Jean Faux, Bordeaux Superieur, 2007). Of course it’s also hard to beat the Grand Cru’s and First Growths he samples (awfully nice friends he has). But McInerney makes the interesting observation that the most expensive bottles are being purchased by the Chinese.
More recently, [Lafite] has become the object of a kind of cult in China. A November Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong ratcheted up the market even further. Three bottles of the 1869 vintage sold for $232,692 each, about the price of a new Ferrari California. This wine is obviously a great rarity, but cases of the 1982 vintage, still widely available on world auction markets, sold for $131,859, or more than $10,000 per bottle. This kind of madness may gladden the hearts of auctioneers and first-growth château owners, but it tends to depress the average wine drinker and to harden the perception of Bordeaux as a commodity rather than a beverage.
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