Glamis Castle has a wealthy historical past. Reputed to be essentially the most haunted castle in Scotland, it as soon as hosted Mary, Queen of Scots and has robust hyperlinks to the British royal household. It’s additionally stated to have impressed William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Macbeth.”
But maybe one in every of its most alluring choices is what lay deep in its wine cellar, described by an skilled as an “Aladdin’s cave.”
For nearly a century, bottles of Bordeaux wine beforehand thought of undrinkable had been hidden in the Scottish castle. Today, their contents are thought of a number of the finest — and most respected — in the world. Now, two magnums of Château Lafite Rothschild 1870 have offered for a record-breaking whole of $306,250.
The two bottles, had been central to the “Immortal Vintages” public sale at Sotheby’s on April 17, and regarded “legendary” by these in the know.
The first magnum set a new world record for its age and format, promoting for $106,250. Shortly after, the second bottle once more broke the world record, reaching $200,000 in almost 4 minutes of bidding between potential cellphone and on-line consumers, Sotheby’s stated in a assertion. Described by Sotheby’s as “a landmark single-owner sale,” the general public sale was made up of greater than 250 a lot of Bordeaux wine spanning two centuries and fetched greater than $2 million.
Discovered in Glamis Castle’s wine cellar in the Nineteen Seventies, the 2 magnums had been solely anticipated to promote for as much as $50,000 apiece after they went underneath the hammer in New York.
Glamis Castle, located in the east of Scotland, about 12 miles from Dundee, has been the ancestral house of the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne since 1372. The castle’s cellar, dubbed the “catacombs,” was fitted out in 1765 for John, the ninth Earl of Strathmore.
According to Ingrid Thomson, the archivist at Glamis Castle, the cellar is at the moment used “for general storage and cleaning supplies,” however in the course of the many years that it housed the long-forgotten bottles, historical past was being made above stairs.
The late Queen Elizabeth II’s mom, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, grew up at Glamis Castle earlier than marrying the long run King George VI in 1923. The couple’s youthful daughter — and Queen Elizabeth’s sister — Princess Margaret, was born at Glamis.
“The princesses spent many happy holidays at Glamis, and we have letters from ‘Lilibet’ to her grandparents thanking them for stays at Glamis,” stated Thomson.
The two magnums, hailing from the Château Lafite Rothschild property of Bordeaux wine in France, had been found nearly by chance. They had been amongst 42 bottles discovered shortly earlier than a Christie’s public sale in 1971 titled “The Finest and Rarest Wines from Private Cellars.”
Michael Broadbent, the late founding father of Christie’s wine division, said he discovered the bottles of 1870 Lafite when he first visited the castle. The cellar’s log e book confirmed that the thirteenth Earl of Strathmore had bought 48 bottles of 1870 Lafite and saved them in the cellar in 1878.
“The wine was so astringent that he did not like it and, when he died… the wine was virtually untouched, and his successors just left it,” wrote Broadbent of his account, which is on the Christie’s website.
“In fact it took a full 50 years to become mellow enough to drink, and it was already a century old at the time of my visit and then agreement to sell all the Glamis Castle old wine.”
Broadbent determined it might be “prudent” to pattern the wine earlier than the sale, he wrote. “The level was perfect, the cork was sound, the colour of the wine impressively deep, its nose was sound – not a trace of oxidisation or acidity, and its balance and flavour perfection.”
Richard Young, Sotheby’s wine head of public sale gross sales, Americas, defined in an electronic mail to NCS the classic’s “legendary” standing. “When the cellar was rediscovered and auctioned in 1971, the bottles emerged in remarkably pristine condition — an almost unheard-of survival for wines of this age,” he stated.
“Importantly, bottles from this cellar that have since been opened are widely regarded as the best-preserved examples of the 1870 Lafite, giving them an almost benchmark status among collectors.”
Part of what makes it so particular is that it pre-dates the phylloxera epidemic of the late nineteenth century, when tiny bugs attacked the roots of vines.
“It swept across Europe’s vineyards, including Bordeaux, and destroyed vast areas of vines by feeding on their roots,” stated Young.
“The long-term solution was to graft European vines onto resistant American rootstocks, a practice still used today. However, this fundamentally changed vine biology, and many believe it altered the character of the wines. Pre-phylloxera wines such as the 1870 Lafite are therefore prized because they were made from original, ungrafted vines, offering a glimpse into a ‘lost’ style of winemaking.”
According to Young, wine from vintages like 1870 and 1865 seem at public sale solely as soon as or twice a decade and have gotten “exceedingly rare” — whereas magnum codecs, which maintain 1.5 liters of wine, are even much less frequent.
Jason Tesauro is a sommelier, author and photographer who knew Broadbent.
“He called it Aladdin’s cave,” Tesauro stated of Broadbent’s description of Glamis, including: “This once-in-an-aeon vintage forgotten in a once-in-a-century cellar led to a once-in-a-lifetime find.”
Tesauro stated he sampled an 1870 Lafite at an invite-only occasion in 2023.
“I’ve a sensory reminiscence of that specific wine, which doesn’t occur with each wine, even nice ones.
“There were wines at that table that would’ve been the greatest wines that other people have ever seen in their life, and yet they were completely upstaged by the 1870,” he informed NCS.
“It’s like appreciating Sophia Loren aged 90,” he added. “You’re not her for her 19-year-old magnificence. You’re trying for the etched traces of expertise in her face. So what this wine had that was a full shock to all of us, was we may nonetheless odor fruit.
“To pull back the curtain and still see what was there — not echoes, not shadows — but still getting the firsthand inputs from the fruit and the color were extraordinary.”
Tesauro stated this type of public sale, which additionally featured a fair older Château Lafite from 1865 (offered for $40,000), appeals to 2 sorts of bidders — those that will maintain the wine on a shelf as a part of a assortment and those that “are so passionate” that “they want to experience what was going on in the world in 1870.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been up to date with the public sale outcomes.