1774 Arbois bottle sold at auction ©Serge Reverchon/CIVJ
In February 2011 at the annual auction of old Jura wines at the Percée du Vin Jaune festival, a bottle of 1774 Arbois was sold for a massive and record-breaking 57,000 euros.
I wrote about it in my Jura updates last year, and was commissioned for a long piece by the magazine World of Fine Wine. In their ‘Then and Now’ section I wrote about the history of this bottle and its sale, plus about Vin Jaune today. I was really impatient to see the article published – finally it has been and is in the current edition of World of Fine Wine.
Click to read the article as a PDF
The research for this article was absolutely absorbing for me with people like producers Pierre Overnoy and Stéphane Tissot, local historian Roger Gibey, and the purchaser of the bottle Pierre Chevrier being really generous with their time.
At the Percée du Vin Jaune this February in Ruffey-sur-Seille the severe cold (at -18°C the coldest on record!) drew many visitors to attend the auction, but it was certainly a more low key affair. It’s still impressive though to see the array of bottles of 50 years old and more. The highest price paid for a bottle was for a Château-Chalon 1870 (reputed as an excellent vintage) and it went for a trifling 5,500 euros. The Percée next year will be in the village of Voiteur at the foot of the Château-Chalon hill, on the weekend of 2nd-3rd February 2013.
STOP PRESS: According to a feature on the Christie’s website, but not apparently official, it appears that Christie’s Geneva will be selling another of the 1774 ‘Vin Jaune’ Arbois bottles from the Vercel collection at their auction on 15th May 2012.
Jura Wine, Food and Travel 