By a Recovering Wine Obsessive Who Will Never, Ever Taste Any of These
Let me tell you a story. It involves a bottle of wine that cost more than my first apartment. More than my first car, my second car, and probably the car I’ll buy in 2030 combined. It was purchased by two Italian investors through a private NFT marketplace, came with a cartoon ape jpeg, and I will never, ever taste it.
This is the world of the most expensive wine on planet Earth—a realm where finance professors talk about “Veblen goods” with straight faces , where a sommelier’s salary wouldn’t cover the corkage fee, and where I, a perfectly respectable wine enthusiast, am reduced to pressing my nose against the glass of auction catalogs like a hungry child outside a bakery.
Come with me on a journey through the stratosphere of wine pricing. We’ll meet the $2.5 million Champagne that came with a Bored Ape, the space-faring Petrus that orbited Earth for 14 months, and the Burgundies that make hedge fund managers weep with desire. We’ll also, mercifully, discuss wines you can actually afford. But first: the crown jewel.
The Reigning Champion: Champagne That Came With a JPEG
The most expensive bottle of wine ever sold isn’t actually, technically, just wine. It’s a hybrid creature of our strange, strange times.
In July 2022, a magnum of Champagne Avenue Foch 2017 sold for $2.5 million. Let that number sit with you for a moment. Two-point-five. Million. Dollars .
Now, here’s where it gets weird. The bottle came with digital artwork from the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection and five additional NFTs. You didn’t just buy Champagne; you bought a complete collector’s ecosystem. It’s the wine equivalent of buying a Fabergé egg and discovering it comes with a cryptocurrency wallet and lifetime subscription to something called “The Apeiverse.”
The sale was organized by entrepreneur Shammi Shinh through a private NFT marketplace and snapped up by two Italian investors. I like to imagine them sitting in a Milanese palazzo, sipping something far less expensive, and saying: “You know what this room needs? A quarter-million-dollar ape picture and some bubbly.”
A finance professor would call this a textbook Veblen good—as products become more exclusive, prices go up because exclusivity itself is the product . I call it the most expensive wine cooler accessory in human history.
The Space Oddity: Petrus That Went to the Stars
In May 2021, a bottle of Château Petrus 2000 sold for $1 million under circumstances that sound like the plot of a Wes Anderson film .
This particular bottle had spent 14 months aboard the International Space Station. It was “space-aged” in zero gravity, floating above Earth while the rest of us were down here worrying about whether to decant for an hour or two. It came with a regular bottle of Petrus 2000 for comparison (presumably so you could conduct a side-by-side tasting and say, “Yes, the space one definitely has notes of… cosmos?”), custom glasses, and—I swear I’m not making this up—a corkscrew made from a meteorite.
Let me repeat that. A corkscrew. Made. From. Meteorite.
You cannot make this stuff up. Somewhere, a sommelier is using extraterrestrial iron to open wine that spent its adolescence on the International Space Station. This is either the pinnacle of human achievement or evidence that we’ve collectively lost our minds. I’m leaning toward both.
Christie’s in London handled the private sale. The price tag reflected not just the wine’s intrinsic quality—Petrus is already one of Bordeaux’s most exalted names—but the sheer, magnificent novelty of it all. As one observer noted, this was “the space-aging novelty” more than the wine itself driving the price .
The Burgundy Legends: DRC 1945 and the Price of Scarcity
Now we arrive at the wines that serious collectors actually fight over—the ones without cartoon apes or interstellar travel histories.
In October 2018, Sotheby’s New York auctioned two bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1945. The first sold for $558,000. The second went for $496,000 . Both came from the personal cellar of Robert Drouhin, which is the wine equivalent of inheriting a Monet from Claude Monet’s grandson.
Why the astronomical price? Three words: pre-phylloxera vines. In 1945, after producing a legendary vintage under the shadow of World War II, the estate uprooted its ancient vines and replanted. Only 600 bottles were ever produced. You cannot buy another one. You cannot wait for next year’s release. When these bottles are gone, they are gone forever .
The 1945 DRC represents what economists call a perfect storm of value factors: historical significance, outstanding vintage quality, extreme rarity, exceptional aging potential, and irreplaceable provenance. It’s the wine world’s Hope Diamond—beautiful, legendary, and entirely out of reach.
As one wine investment expert dryly noted, “The most expensive one is called DRC, it’s about €20,000 per bottle. The fact that you can say that you own this gives pleasure, and people are willing to pay for this” . €20,000 is for the regular stuff. The 1945 is in another galaxy entirely.
The Cult Classics: Screaming Eagle, Cheval Blanc, and Mouton
Not all record-breakers are ancient. Some are practically newborns.
Screaming Eagle 1992 Cabernet Sauvignon (6-liter bottle) sold for $500,000 at the Napa Valley Wine Auction in June 2000 . This was the winery’s inaugural vintage, already considered a cult classic, with near-perfect critical scores and exactly one large-format bottle produced. The sale was for charity, which means someone paid half a million dollars for wine and got to feel virtuous about it. Masterful.
Château Cheval Blanc 1947 (6-liter Imperial) fetched $304,375 at Christie’s Geneva in November 2010 . This vintage is frequently called the “wine of the century”—a phrase wine writers deploy roughly once per decade, but here it might actually be justified. The combination of legendary vintage, exceptional quality, and extreme rarity in large format created a perfect pricing storm.
Château Mouton-Rothschild 1945 (4.5-liter Jeroboam) sold for $310,700 at Sotheby’s New York in February 2007 . Only 24 Jeroboams were produced that year. The label, designed by Philippe Jullian, featured a celebratory “V for victory” to mark the end of World War II. It’s history you can drink—if you have $310,700 and no mortgage payments.
The Shipwrecked Survivor: Heidsieck Monopole 1907
Perhaps the most romantic story in the entire canon involves a bottle of Heidsieck Monopole 1907 Champagne recovered from a Swedish freighter sunk by a German submarine during World War I .
In 1998, one such bottle sold for $275,000 at an auction in Moscow. The Champagne had spent over 80 years underwater in the Baltic Sea, preserved at constant temperature in total darkness. Salvagers brought up hundreds of bottles, all reportedly still drinkable due to the wine’s high sugar content—a relic of an era when Champagne was intentionally sweet.
Imagine the tasting notes: “Hints of apple, brioche, and 1916. A lingering finish of torpedo impact and diplomatic incident.”
The Asian Boom: Lafite 1869
In October 2010, Sotheby’s Hong Kong sold three bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild 1869. Each sold for approximately $233,973—far, far above pre-sale estimates .
The 1869 vintage is significant as the first produced under Rothschild family ownership. But the real story here is the emergence of Asian collectors as major players in the fine wine market. Demand from Hong Kong, mainland China, and other Asian markets drove prices to levels that stunned even seasoned auction veterans. It was a clear signal that the center of gravity in the wine collecting world was shifting.
What Actually Makes Wine This Expensive? (A Sommelier Explains)
If you’re wondering how a beverage—fermented grape juice, let’s be honest—can possibly command these prices, you’re not alone. Wine investment experts identify eight key factors that separate a $20 bottle from a $20,000 one :
1. Terroir & Vineyard Classification. Burgundy’s Grand Cru vineyards like Romanée-Conti cover just 1.8 hectares and produce roughly 6,000 bottles annually. The land itself is irreplaceable. You cannot plant more Romanée-Conti. You cannot fake it. You either own a piece of that hillside or you don’t.
2. Producer Reputation & History. Estates like Château Lafite Rothschild (established 1234) and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (1760) have multi-generational track records of excellence. That’s not a brand; it’s a dynasty.
3. Vintage Quality. Exceptional vintages occur when weather conditions align perfectly. The 1945 vintage across Europe produced legendary wines despite wartime challenges. Great vintages command 3-10x the price of average years from the same producer.
4. Production Scarcity. Screaming Eagle produces approximately 500 cases annually. Domaine Leroy’s Musigny yields under 300 cases. When global demand far exceeds supply, prices go vertical.
5. Critical Acclaim. A 100-point score from Robert Parker or Jancis Robinson can immediately double or triple a wine’s value. The 2021 Sassicaia, which sells for around $289, received perfect scores from multiple critics and is already considered a “monumental” vintage .
6. Provenance & Storage History. A wine’s chain of custody matters enormously. Bottles from famous cellars—like the Drouhin collection—command massive premiums. Documentation of optimal storage conditions (55°F, 70% humidity, darkness, no vibration) is essential for high-value bottles.
7. Historical Significance. Wines connected to historical events or figures carry romance. Thomas Jefferson’s purported wine collection, bottles from shipwrecks, wines marking the end of World War II—these capture collectors’ imaginations beyond any sensory experience.
8. Bottle Format. Large formats (magnums, jeroboams, imperials) age more gracefully due to lower oxygen-to-wine ratios and are considerably rarer. A pristine Château Petrus in Imperial format might sell for 20x the price of a standard 750ml bottle from the same vintage.
The Sommelier’s Secret: You Don’t Need to Spend a Fortune
Here’s the truth that sommeliers know but expensive-wine lists don’t advertise: stratospheric prices reflect scarcity and collector demand as much as objective quality .
The 2021 Sassicaia, which critics are calling “one of the most compelling releases I have ever tasted” with notes of “dark cherries, dark plums, sweet red berries, spices, fresh florals, sweet tobacco, gravel and hints of licorice,” costs about $289 . It received 100 points from multiple critics . It will age for decades. It is, by any reasonable measure, one of the finest wines on Earth.
This is not cheap. But it’s also not half a million dollars.
For collectors, expensive wines offer potential appreciation, portfolio diversification, and the prestige of owning rare bottles. For investors, fine wine has delivered annualized returns of approximately 8-10% over the past 20 years, with lower correlation to equity markets than traditional assets .
For drinkers? For actual human beings who want to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner? The quality difference between a $50 and $5,000 wine is real but diminishing. Many sommeliers will tell you that excellent wines exist at every price point, and the magic happens in the glass, not the auction catalog.
How to Taste Like a Sommelier (Without the Meteorite Corkscrew)
Since none of us are buying the $2.5 million Champagne ape bottle, we might as well learn to appreciate what we can afford. Professional sommeliers use a systematic approach—the “four S’s”: See, Swirl, Smell, and Sip .
See: Examine the wine’s color and clarity against a white background. Red wines lose color with age, becoming orange to reddish brown. Whites deepen from pale straw to golden to amber. “Legs” on the glass indicate alcohol content and viscosity, not sugar .
Swirl: This releases aromas. Your nose is more sensitive than your tongue. A sommelier’s training involves building a mental “library” of scents—lavender from grandmother’s garden, jasmine from a vacation in Crete—to identify varietals, regions, and even vintages .
Smell: Look for intensity, aromatic characteristics, and signs of age. There are no wrong answers; every person has a distinct nose. If it smells like wet dog and old books, congratulations—you’ve identified a mature Burgundy.
Sip: Actually, don’t sip. Munch. Chew the wine. Slurp it with air. Let it coat your entire palate. Then spit. (Professional tasters spit because they have hundreds of wines to evaluate and don’t want to be horizontal by noon.)
Evaluate sweetness, acidity, tannins, body, and finish. Note the flavors—fruit, floral, herbal, earthy. Consider the balance. And take notes. Your memory is not as good as you think it is, and future you will thank present you for writing down what that 2018 Barolo actually tasted like.
The Final Sip
So what have we learned? That the most expensive wine in the world is currently a $2.5 million Champagne that comes with an NFT of a bored cartoon primate. That you can spend $1 million on Bordeaux that’s been to space and back. That a 1945 Burgundy from pre-phylloxera vines is worth more than many houses.
We’ve also learned that none of this has much to do with what’s actually in the bottle. The $2.5 million Champagne isn’t 50,000 times better than a $50 grower Champagne. It’s not even 10 times better. Its value lies in story, scarcity, and spectacle—in the fact that it exists at all, that someone else wants it, that owning it says something about you.
This is not a criticism. Wine has always been about more than fermented grape juice. It’s about place and time and memory. It’s about sharing something with people you love. It’s about the feeling of a perfect vintage, the anticipation of a bottle you’ve been saving, the satisfaction of a recommendation that exceeds every expectation.
The $2.5 million Champagne with the bored ape on it? That’s not wine. That’s performance art with bubbles.
The real treasures are the bottles that cost a week’s salary, not a year’s. The Sassicaia that critics call “sensational” and “built for the ages” but still costs less than a decent dinner for two at a three-star restaurant . The Domaine Leroy that’s appreciated 400% since release but also, you know, is actually drinkable . The 2021 vintage that will outlive all of us but can be yours for the price of a modest shopping spree.
These are the wines that sommeliers actually drink when no one’s watching. These are the bottles worth chasing.
As for the space-aged Petrus and the ape-bottle Champagne? I’ll leave those to the investors, the collectors, and the two Italian gentlemen who now own a magnum of bubbly and a JPEG of a primate in a party hat. I hope they enjoy it. I really do.
In the meantime, I’ll be over here with my $289 Sassicaia, taking notes, chewing my wine, and thanking whatever meteorological forces aligned to make 2021 such an exceptional vintage in Bolgheri.
It’s not $2.5 million. But it’s 100 points, and that’s good enough for me.
BY ELENA MAKREE