Your best ever wine purchase?

we have done this before but long ago. There are so many choices. I remember 82 Gruaud Larose at $10/b and 82 LLC for $12.50, 96 La Tache for $250, and 82 Grange for $46.50, but it would have to be magnums of 90 La Tache for $550 each. Or maybe that single b of 80 DRC RC for $100. Or 45 Vogue Musigny, best bottle I ever had, for $450.
alan

82 Bordeaux just needs to go into a category all by itself. All of us old farts could have a thread devoted to the prices we paid for the wines.
1978 Faively Clos Vougeot for $10 and 1979 Ausone for $25 when a store here was closing.
The first time I visited Truchot in 2004 I got grand crus for 22 Euros and premier crus for 12 Euros. [Dollar and Euro were about 1-1 then.] Wish I could have carried back even more wine.
1952 Haut Brion at $100 and 1955 Margaux at $80 in the late 1980s. [Soon after David Schildknecht got to Pearson’s.]
1990 Selbach Eiswein at $20 per half and other sweet gems [When David Schildknecht left Pearson’s.]
1976 Muller Catoir Scheurebe BA at $10 per half when Terry Theise was just starting to import German wines in the mid 1980s or so.

Tasted the 45 at a Heublein Auction Preview Tasting in the early 80s and it was truly great.

My best purchases, I think, as a young fart.

1974 Heitz Martha’s for $300 from the original owner in 2008. Still have the empty and still the most expensive bottle I’ve ever purchased but well worth it.

Also bought 2 1978 Mondavi Reserves for $75 a piece from him and he gave me the original case note from the winery for both of those, which is really cool to have in a geeky way.

A case of 2000 Carruades Lafite for $27 per. Somewhere in China there is a very foolish person who paid an stunningly foolish amount for a (second) label and a decent but comparatively unremarkable wine.

96 LaTache for $425 that I’ve since drank and loved. '99 Rousseau Chambertin for $160. '01 Rousseau Ruchottes for $106 that has been a huge overachiever everytime I’ve had it. '98 La Mission HB for $150 some years down the line from release has been awesome for the money. The amazing '06 Montevertine for $35. And most recently, 4 more btls of the rockin 02 Bollinger Grande Anne for $78 ea.

Okay, I’ll play.

A bottle of 99 LaTache at restaurant Nana (Dallas) for $400 in 2003. Yes it was infanticide, but it was also extraordinary!

Or maybe 00 Lafite at $300 on release.

2000 DRC Romanee Conti for $200
1991 DRC La Tache $400 (3) bottles

I hate to say it, but it was French - 2000 Lafite, purchased at Houston Costco at $239 per and sold in Carmel at $1,625 per. The only wine I’ve ever “flipped.”

That will be nearly impossible to top. The '99 is in place by itself! I made the mistake of coming back 2 hours later for a '99 locally at $450 only for it to be gone. I’ve since help drink someone else’s and loved it.

I did this as well but paid something in the $30s for my bottles. Completely planned on drinking them too until the skyrocketing value. Recall making almost 10X what I spent.

Off the top of my head within the past 15 years (I can’t remember accurately further back):

1985 Mouton Rothschild for roughly the equivalent of US$69 (circa 1997).
2001 Les Forts de Latour for US$37 (circa 2004, bought the equivalent of 3 cases within that year and the next - drank the last one maybe a year ago).
1982 CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva for €40 (April 2010).
1995 Cheval Blanc Magnum for US$525 (circa 2007).
1990 Cheval Blanc for around US$625 (circa 2005).

That very wine was just discussed here yesterday.

I also bought 00 Carruades at Houston Costco. Unfortunately, I drank (as opposed to sold) them. Decent claret, but not worth $250. Really not worth $100 IMO. I think I still have some 00 Pavillon in the cellar. I should probably sell that, but I’ll probably drink.

Toss-up among 1902 Ch. Ausone for $40, 1918 Ch. Gruaud Larose for $30, 1961 Ch. Latour for $34 and 1931 Quinto do Noval for $35.

That was 40 years ago; current dollars would be about five times that.

At the time I was very annoyed at my elders who bragged of snagging 1961 First Growths for $5; apologies for now annoying my juniors.

99 La Tache was $500 on release in 2002; to get it in a restaurant a year later for $100 less is crazy.
Forgot 82 Cheval Blanc for $42.50. My hand shook as I wrote the check for two bottles, as I had never paid that much at the time, but a small sip convinced me.
alan

In the eighties I used to haunt the Butterfields Auctions in SF. I picked up a Joseph Heitz signed bottle of 1970 Heitz Martha’s for $50. I still have it.

In the nineties I bought a mixed case of Cos d’Estournal & Pichon Baron for 39.99/bottle. Opened the first bottle of Pichon Baron last year and it was superlative. Opened the second bottle of Cos last week and it was also great.

More recently, I picked up one each of the 2005 La La’s for $355 each. A little beyond my comfort level but I feel it was a very good price.

Always love this thread. For me, a few ‘winners’. The Imperial of '90 Margaux that I bought in maybe '95 or '96 for $500. I also got great deals on '96 La Tache in Heathrow Airport in '99 or so, maybe $200 - $250 per bottle (they were always running a sale, had to carry the bottles on the flight, no probs pre Sept '01 with that stuff). I once bought a bunch of Italian wines from a friend, sight unseen. He said ‘good value’, I said ‘ok’. Was around '93 or '94. Average price was maybe $50 per bottle. Had a bunch of '85 and '88 Sassicaia in the mix…

90 Leroy Clos de la Roche for $100/b. Bought a case right before the Parker 100 score–not with cash but by trading California Cabs that the store found more saleable–Caymus, Silver Oak, etc.
90 Raveneau Clos at that time was $60!

1993 Rousseau Chambertin for $150. Probably not the greatest deal at the time…