DangDang in Beijing is offering this for only $587.40.
Clicked on it and came out with this. If It had been proper Margaux, I would have bought as many bottles as they could come up with at that price.
http://product.dangdang.com/1476065995.html
That looks like an excellent fill.
First I thought this may be a Rodenstock bottle!
Dang! Looks brand new.
This wine is mwuch younger but has lower fill
Claus,
The color shows that the wine is undrinkable. It is very probably a true wine but I would never buy.
Mark,
For the Chinese Margaux I imagine that the indication “1789” has nothing to do with a vintage. There is absolutely no interest in such a bottle.
Just for the fun : a wine merchant that I know proposed to me a 450 cl bottle of Lafite 1825. He said to me that it had been relabelled in the Chateau.
But : the name is Lafite Rothschild and the chateau knows very well that Lafite was Rothschild in 1868 and not before.
And : “mise en bouteilles au chateau” is stupid because this indication never existed in the 19th century.
Considering that, I will never buy such a bottle, even if it could be a true one because nobody can exclude with 100% certainty that it is a true bottle. But the factors of uncertainty are too many.
Francois, what do you think of the fact that the wine merchant even tried to sell you the bottle?
Certainly a) they know these things as well, especially the “mise en bouteilles au chateau” error; and b) they clearly were willing to represent it to you as possibly being genuine.
Given these circumstances, the merchant is as much a fraudulent player as the person who created the bottle. They are committing a criminal act. And someone with less knowledge of the history of Lafite and of bottling practices will likely buy the bottle eventually, ending up with a worthless fake Lafite.
The label looks scratched and “worked” to make it look old, and it has the “chateau bottled” line at the top of the label. Did Lafite chateau bottle in 1865?
Yes, Lafite produced 1865s.
The 1865 Lafite Rothschild is other worldly! The first word I wrote after smelling it was “wow”! The color was medium garnet, with considerable rust and orange at the edge. The wine possessed an extraordinary fragrance , great density and fabulous intensity of chocolate, herb and cedar like flavors with a wonderful , sweet, inner core of opulent fruit. The finish was long and velvety, with no hard edges. It is hard to imagine a 130 year old wine (made when American Civil War adversaries Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant were alive) tasting so extraordinary. Unreal! Last tasted 9/95. Rating 98. RP
This wine was probably pre-phylloxera.
Lafite produced 1865’s, but that doesn’t mean they estate bottled in 1865.
“Appellation Pauillac Controllee”? Really? In 1865? I don’t think so.
This wine is being auctioned with a current bid of $5,800 and is absolutely a fake. The Château changed it’s name form Château Lafite to Château Lafite Rothschild in 1868. This wine is from the 1865 vintage, before the name change, so an authentic bottle would be labeled Château Lafite?
Per Wikipedia:
On 8 August 1868, the Château was purchased by Baron James Mayer Rothschild for 4.4 million francs, and the estate became Château Lafite Rothschild. Rothschild, however, died just three months after purchasing Lafite. The estate then became the joint property of his three sons: Alphonse, Gustave, and Edmond Rothschild.
Obvious fugazi
the name change alone doesn’t make it fake—could have been labeled years post bottling, quite common.
I’m not defending the miserable looking 1865 bottle, but as Alan mentions, the stored bottles are always unlabeled, and if the bottle was a very late release, it would be fitted with a moden label, -new owners name, -and even the Appellation Pauillac Controlee.
Sometimes the chateau-documents can attest this, but it’s still not a proof of genuineness.
As François writes, the color does not look sound either…
The overall appearance of the 1865 bottle is bad, and not something I would put in my collection.
Much more physical investigation is needed before one can say it’s a complete fake.
-Søren.
I don’t agree with this at all. AOC is a legal definition. It’s not simply a marketing term on a label. You can’t have a wine that was not made under a legal AOC rules (which didn’t exist then) labeled AOC.
In 2016 some rare bottles was discovered in Averys cellars.
The rare vintage 1897 Lafite was among them.
On the label it says “Appellation Pauillac Controlee” (AOC starts in 1936).
I can’t imagine these bottles are fakes… and If you Google old Lafites, this is actually quite common.
-But I’m also not an expert in French AOC-laws, and how they were handled in the past.
Kind regards, Søren.
Just out of curiosity, I consulted an excellent book on Bdx labels, “Les Etiquettes,” published in 1993. Here is what they have for the 1865 label (of course, this doesn’t mean the one being discussed in this thread is a fake):
I agree on the points raised by Soren.
here is the lafite 1898 that I opened in 2016 and which was fantastic and true without any doubt.
The Chateau has recorked and relabeled in 1953 with a label giving the actual mentions and not the mentions used in 1898.
So it happens that the chateau has used modern form of labels and not forms which were used at the time the wine was put on the market.
It appears that the authentic Lafites that have been recorked and relabeled have a stamp or additional label that signifies the rework done by Lafite. The 1865 listed in this auction does not, therefore it does seem suspect.
Perhaps the biggest clue that the Lafite is not a fake is the color. I have come across other bottles where the coloration is extremely light at the top and much darker at the bottom, like this one. Also I have seen the bottom with rather extreme sediment- 2 inches.
I have a 1959 DB like this in my collection, unopened. The cork is constructed at the bottom and the wine likely oxidized.
Point being, even if everything else about the bottle was 100% Chateau verified I would not buy the wine because of the color.
If you’re going to fake a wine, why fake it with wine that looks over the hill and undrinkable?
As for that 2789, I agree - what a fill!