I heard this joke and thought of you An elderly man with a cane and badly-dyed brown hair shuffled into a jewelry store one Friday evening with a strikingly beautiful and much younger woman. He told the jeweler he was looking for a very special ring for his girlfriend. The jeweler looked through his stock and brought out a $5,000 ring. The man said, "No, I'd like to see something much more special!" So the jeweler went to his special stock and brought out another ring. "Here's a stunning ring at only $40,000" the jeweler said. Upon seeing it, his girlfriend's eyes sparkled and her whole body trembled with excitement. Upon which the old man immediately said, "Ok, we'll take it." The jeweler asked how payment would be made and the old man replied, "By check, but I know you need to make sure my check is good so I'll write it now and you can call the bank Monday to verify the funds. Then I'll pick the ring up Monday afternoon." On Monday morning, the jeweler phoned the old man and said, "Sir...there's no money in that account." ''I know," said the old man..."but let me tell you about my weekend!"
$558K for a bottle of wine, that's nothing. 60 Year-Old Whisky Sells For Over $1 Million At Auction https://www.forbes.com/sites/george...er-1-million-dollars-at-auction/#7788e1995883
Sometimes it is not to have it, but for others not to have it. Bidding war against your enemy, you don't mind to over pay a bit just to screw him, do you?
If the picture of the bottle in the Bloomberg photo is the actual bottle before sampling, it definitely won't be drinkable. But surely they extracted some with a hypo before completing the sale. The bottle is most definitely not full. Either wine is missing or else air has gotten into the bottle and some of the water has diffuse out, in which case the wine is undrinkable! I drank Romanee Conti in the early 1970s, not this 1945 vintage of course. Its a a very nice burgundy, worth about 50$ a bottle at today's prices, but selling for much more. The 1945 vintage coming on the heels of the war is indeed a famous French vintage. It was a very good year for wine and the amounts produced were not large. It was also a good year for those in France who had survived the war. Perhaps enthusiasm for the wine was influenced by enthusiasm for life. I also, about the same time, had two bottles of Chambolle-Musigny, 1951, from Collection du Docteur Barolet -- the real deal not the later imposter. Nineteen Fifty-one was a bad year for the french wine, but the Barolet collection was custom made from specially selected grapes using the old method of stopping the fermentation by adding brandy. I preferred the Dr. Barolet to the Romanee Conti, but I wouldn't turn my noise up to either so long as someone else was buying.
Thank you for that detailed explanation. I confess I am not much of a drinker, but I always strive to learn more and that was fascinating to read.