The Bordeaux Wine Experience, Wine Trivia quiz and answers
- My question this month is a simple one:
What is the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold?
(I'll help you: it was a Bordeaux). I want to know the name of the chateau, the vintage and the price!
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This month I again ask you to recognize a bottle from my own personal wine cellar. I am just showing a detail of the label. The question is: which chateau used to carry this label on its bottles?
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This time I ask you to recognize a bottle from my own personal wine cellar. I am only showing a detail of the label. I just want to know the name of of the chateau and the appellation.
Click here for the answer
- My question for this month is about the chateau bottling:
Which Bordeaux property started bottling at the chateau and in what year?
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- This month I ask you to recognize a bottle. Which wine was decorated with this image and in which vintage? Please tell me what this image stands for.
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- This time my question is on the Medoc. I would like to know which country has had the greatest influence on wine growing and wine making in the Medoc region AND why! (apart from the French of course)
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- How many chateaux were classified as a FIRST Growth in 1855?
Be careful: this question is NOT as easy as you might think.
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Do you recognize the detail of the label of this Bordeaux wine?
I want to know the name of the chateau, the vintage and the appellation.
Click here for the answer
Answers
-
The second most expensive ever sold - it was sold privately, not at auction - is a 1787 Château d'Yquem, a Sauternes, that an American collector acquired for US$90,000.
Chateau d'Yquem, The wine of kings and the
king of wines...
When the grapes for this wine were picked, Marie Antoinette was sitting in Versailles waiting to have her head chopped off, James Watt was developing or inventing the steam engine, and George Washington had just been nominated the first president of the United States of America."
The most expensive wine ever sold at auction remains a bottle of 1787 Château Lafite that Christie's in London sold for € 107.000 (US$160,000) in December 1985.
- The answer is the Saint Julien Second Growth Chateau Léoville Barton. The famous label with the "head of the boar"was used between 1929 and 1960. For label collectors this apparently is a rare find and very hard to come by.
I was born in the vintage 1958 so this bottle has a special meaning to me.
The property came in the hands of the Barton family in 1826. In 1929 Ronald Barton inherited the Chateau. His nephew Anthony Barton took over the property in 1983.
Born in Ireland in 1930 Anthony came to live in France in 1951. He was for many years export director in the family business in which the Seagram Group had a majority share. In 1967 he started his own firm " Les Vins Fins Anthony Barton" and in 1983 he inherited the vineyards.
Today, proud of his family's long attachment to the wine of bordeaux, he carries on the Barton tradition with the help of his daughter Lilian. Their mutual ambition is to improve wherever possible the wines of Langoa and Léoville Barton.
The correct answer is Chateau Petrus, and the appellation is Pomerol. Contrary to popular belief there are no Classified Growths in Pomerol.
The present situation is as follows: The Syndicat de Pomerol refuses to be classified, because, in their own words, an "appellation with more than 1,000 years behind it, is recognition enough".
So Chateau Petrus, being much more expensive that a First Growth, is NOT a Classified Growth.
Some people answered that they knew the vintage as well.
The only way you could have known the vintage is if you have visited my cellar and paid close attention as this is a bottle from my personal cellar.
The labels of Petrus are the same each and every year.
For more information on Pomerol, please click here.
The correct answer is Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Baron Philippe de Rothschild began bottling at the Chateau in 1924. This was a first in Bordeaux and in celebration of this historic moment, he had Jean Carlu design the very first "Art" label for Mouton. It remains today as one of the greatest examples of the Cubist influence in commercial art. From that time on, the label took on a new importance and a new function: it became the trademark, the proof of origin, the guarantee of quality and the signature of the vineyard.
Until that time the wines were shipped in barrels. The ageing and the bottling were done by the traders in the country's where they were shipped to. That is the reason that you can find at auctions markings like UK bottling or Belgian bottling.
Baron Philippe wanted to control the quality of is product every step of the way. And he was interested in a cut of the traders margin as well of course...
- The correct answer is: the 1999 Lafite Rothschild. The decoration is to commemorate the total eclipse of the Sun, which occurred on Wednesday, August 11, 1999. The bottle is also adorned with an engraved "1999".
Parker gave it a score of 95 points.
The bottle is from my personal wine cellar and is a part of the bottles we bought from the year my youngest son Alexander was born. I am looking forward to opening this bottle with him but it might take another 10 to 15 years as they are just seven years old (the boy as well as the bottle...).
- As we are Dutch ourselves, it gives me pleasure that the answer is:
the Dutch.
At the end of the 17th century and at the beginning of the 18th, the Dutch were also appreciating these Bordeaux wines that they destined for trade with their distant colonies or for distillation.
The ability to preserve this precious beverage during long ocean crossings was at stake and became of utmost importance. A number of techniques were perfected, among them the use of sulphur that was burned in oak casks before they were filled. It wasn't until Louis Pasteur, in the mid-19th century, that the qualities of sulphur as an anti-bacterial agent that could protect the wine were clearly understood. Without having been able to scientifically explain this at the time, the Dutch nonetheless transformed this wine from one that had to be drunk "quickly" to one that would not even reach its peak for years after it was bottled, a "vin de garde" (literally, a "wine to keep"). They also discovered all the beneficial effects of wine-aging that give it a greater bouquet. The successful exportation of Bordeaux wines grew non-stop, so much so that it became necessary to extend the vineyards to answer the ever increasing demand. The Dutch once more offered their competence, this time in draining marshes, and among them were those in the Haut Médoc area that was still mostly under water at that time.
- In 1855, only four red wines were assigned the status of Premier Grand Cru Classé, three from Médoc (Latour, Lafite Rothschild, and Margaux) and one from Graves (Haut-Brion). Mouton Rothschild was only promoted to First Growth status in 1973, after decades of lobbying by its owner.
The chateaux of Sauternes were classified, along with those of the Médoc. The classification was originally drawn up by the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce for the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris, at the request of Emperor Napoleon III.
In this original 1855 classification, there were eleven of the sweet white wines of Sauternes and Barsac that were classed as Premier Grand Cru Classé, and one (Château d'Yquem) was granted a special Premier Grand Cru Supérieur (Superior First Growth) classification. Therefore the correct answer is 16, as a total of 16 chateaux received a First Growth classification.
- First Growth Chateau Mouton Rothschild, vintage 2000;
appellation Pauillac.
The bottle itself has become a collector's item, its glass adorned with a treasure from the Museum of Wine in Art at Mouton. The little "Augsburg Ram", a chased silver-gilt drinking vessel created around 1590 by Jakob Schenauer, a German master goldsmith has been reproduced on the bottle using a new technique for enameling in relief. In this way, a treasure from the past has been given new life thanks to modern know-how.
In order to reproduce all the refinement and lustre of the original work, after four months of research, the glass maker B.S.N. came up with a new technique for enameling in relief, calling for custom-made tools and work of the utmost precision. The particularly complex method for firing the gold and enamel has produced a scintillating texture and an incomparable capacity to catch the light.
A golden ring around the black foil reproduces the design engraved on the ram's collar and recalls the chased volutes of its body. The arms, the name, the vintage and the owner's signature have been screen-printed in gold. The bottle, of high-quality, heavy glass, has been slightly remodeled at the shoulder in the shape of a truncated cone. As proof of its authenticity, the Chateau Mouton Rothschild name is engraved in the base.
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