The most for any singular bottle I’ve purchased, regardless of format, remains the 2012 SQN Petite Sirah magnum which was $1,500 on release.
The most I’ve spent on a standard bottle was the 1975 d’Yquem for $700, which I will be opening in July for my 50th.
Generally speaking, it seems to me that at the time we purchase expensive bottles it often feels like too much, but when one considers that bottles such as the ones mentioned in this thread are typically shared with friends and loved ones, the price just doesn’t matter as much. The memories of the evening take center stage, and no one ever asks “what did this cost?” and I can’t recall ever thinking, “wow, I just opened $xxx worth of wine.”
A 1982 Beaulieu Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon back around 1990 or so, for around $29. At the time it was anywhere from 3x to 5x the amount I had been comfortable paying for a bottle of wine (mostly I was buying $6 to $8 bottles at the time). Man, that $29 seemed really extravagant at the time.
I was invited to go there with a friend of a friend who was a member, and we had a nice extended tasting. It turned out that the several bottlings we sampled over the evening were either out of stock for sale, too expensive relative to my enjoyment, or out of my price range. I bought these off the shelf just before they closed, mostly based on amusing names and general descriptions. They’re both nice, and I have a bit of each left.
The 12-year brings to mind Glenlivet (which I actually haven’t tried for years), but with a bit more going on. The 15-year has a grassy, leathery, tobacco-y aspect which doesn’t always appeal but which is enjoyable in a way that’s more cerebral than hedonistic.
I went on a Vegas trip with some of my closest friends and it ended up being just after a promotion to CFO for the company I was working for (which also was a couple months before my wife’s last year of law school). This is a long was of saying I spent $1.7 or 1.8k on a bottle of 1997 Giacomo Conterno Monfortino and don’t regret it.
Runners up are a bottle of ‘82 Haut Brion (set aside for the next major promotion/life event) and a charity auction purchase of ‘82 Dujac Charles-Chambertin for $900 and &1k respectively.
That’s a good point. This is how our annual over the top lunches started. We all had bottles that were too expensive to open; but somehow it made it less painful if we shared the wine with friends who brought similar caliber bottles.
1865 Coronation Sherry, based on your TN. Just kidding. It was very cheap, but you did complain that if you knew it was for sale, you would have bid a lot more than I paid.
Would be interested to know if people are including bottles they purchased at restaurants. My personal high was the 2004 Levy & McLellan ($350 I think). Bought into the hype, and realized (for me) that was more than I ever wanted to pay for a bottle of wine.
But, maybe because I own enough good wine and know what the MSRP is for most bottles, I can’t bring myself to pay restaurant prices for most bottles. That said, I had a friend who was at a NY restaurant who saw MacDonald for $300 - and even I would have paid that. But, that number is still below what I paid for the Levy McClellan.
So, in this discussion, it seems relevant to included bottles purchased from restaurants to see what your pain threshold really is.
I will say my upper limit is much higher today than it was 20 years ago. But these days it is focused on certain makers and vintages that are very special to me
It was the first bottle of quality French wine that I had, that got me hooked on this wine thing. It was probably a '76 Beycheville or Talbot, likely about $30 or less, but it has turned out subsequently to be very, very expensive.
For me, it was about $450-500 that I paid for 96 Mouton and 98 Haut Brion. I bought these at K&L several years back using shop credit when I auctioned some wine off there like 2003 Leoville Poyferre, Phelps Insignia (after they went to the dark side) and 2000 Carruades de Lafite (when it was at silly prices - sort of picked up one for one 1/2 bottles of Yquem for the Carruades).
Do not do this….
I have a 1996 Salon with an earmark. My wife reminds me that it is doing zero benefit to us staring at us all these years
It is on the list for 2025
