Most Expensive Champagne in the World

Champagne, a sparkling wine named after the Champagne region of France is the costliest wine to produce. To produce champagne there must be two fermentation processes, with the second step trapping carbon dioxide and making the bubbles. In most of Europe, the name “champagne” is legally protected meaning only the most expensive sparkling wine produced in the Champagne region of France can be marketed as champagne. In the United States and other areas, $3 bottles of wine are often labeled champagne.

Champagne is often drunk as part of a celebration, and when celebrating success many feel the need to exhibit their success. The most expensive champagnes are about image and not just what’s in the bottle. The most expensive champagne in the world sold at auction in 2005 actually sold for $17,625 for just one bottle.

Forbes just released their Most Expensive Champagnes 2005. They have only included accessible champagnes, meaning that they left out certain bottles that are only available in restaurants or a few favored retail outlets, and also left out older releases that are now commanding a premium. The Forbes 2005 list only includes bottles that are available in good wine shops and not exotic and rare bottles of expensive champagne.

• Krug, Clos du Mesnil 1995 - $750 per bottle

Most obviously there is its price, but that’s only a material expression of its more elusive qualities; that air of sophistication and luxury, magic, celebration and above all, romance that are its real asset.
…
Now, to be sure, production costs are a contributing factor to what makes expensive champagne expensive. They employ the best grapes from the best vineyards in the region, and as most houses own only a small percentage of the vines they need, these have to be brought in. Then there’s the way champagne is made, the Méthode Champenoise, that’s extremely labor intensive. Finally, there is the need to age all those bottles for anything up to ten years before they are released. The whole process is a business consultant’s nightmare.

However, not missing a trick, the champagne business then enlists these high costs in the cause of bolstering champagne’s image as an artisanal, hand-crafted product that is worth paying more for.

• Louis Roederer, Cristal Brut 1990, Millenium 2000, Methuselah (6L) $17,625

Cristal has become the premium quaff of choice for the hip-hop crowd in the last couple of years, so it should come as no surprise that something as totally bling as a Methuselah–that’s six liters in one enormous, gold-labeled bottle–should sell for an equally enormous price at Sotheby’s auction in New York in early December. The identity of the seller remains undisclosed, but we want to party at his house. - source

Remember, expensive champagne should not be stored indefinitely in a refrigerator.

Empty List