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A California man is selling a rare bottle of wine he’s been keeping in his basement.
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Mark Paulson said he bought the bottle for $250 in the 1970s, but left it unopened for decades.
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The auction house handling the sale estimates the bottle could go for between $50,000 and $80,000.
A California man could make tens of thousands of dollars thanks to a bottle of wine he bought in the 1970s and never opened.
According to a report by The Washington Post, Mark Paulson bought a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche in the 1970s and left it alone, unopened, inside a cardboard box in his basement for decades. Paulson initially purchased the 1971 bottle for $250 — the equivalent of $1,889 today when adjusted for inflation.
“It’s just been sitting downstairs in my basement for all these years,” he told the Post. “Never really thought that much about it.”
Now, however, it’s headed to auction, where it could fetch between $50,000 and $80,000, according to the auction house, Bonhams Skinner.
The 3-liter bottle is exceptionally rare
When he purchased it, Paulson was working as a commercial painter. However, he had a niche interest in rare and high-end wines.
Roger Brandt, a wine proprietor friend who Paulson met through a San Francisco-based wine-tasting group in the late ’70s, convinced Paulson to purchase the bottle of La Tâche because it was a “once-in-a-lifetime thing,” according to The Washington Post.
The bottle is a Jeroboam, also known as a double magnum, which is the equivalent of four standard bottles of wine. According to Bonhams Skinner, roughly 1,300 cases of La Tâche are produced annually, with the vast majority being standard 750 ml bottles. Very few 3-liter bottles were made, and the quality of the wine itself is considered to be exceptional.
Despite its reputation, Paulson never found the right occasion to open it — now he never will
After doing some internet research, Paulson’s son found an article about Bonhams Skinner selling a similar bottle of 1971 La Tâche for $81,250 in October 2022.
“We were shocked. We were just, you know, flabbergasted, couldn’t say anything. We just kind of hugged each other and smiled a lot,” Paulson told The Washington Post.
Bonhams Skinner is now handling the sale of Paulson’s bottle of La Tâche and five other vintage bottles from his collection, with dates ranging from 1795 to 1870.
“We see amazing bottles every day but this one, combined with the story of how Mark got it, and how important it’s been to his life, was one that I’ll never forget,” Louis Krieger, the deputy director of fine wines at Bonhams Skinner, said in a statement shared with Insider.
The auction house estimates the bottle of wine could sell for between $50,000 and $80,000 when it goes to auction between April 16 and 26, though Paulson hopes the final sale could reach $100,000.
If it does, Paulson — who admits he’s more of a beer drinker these days — says he’ll pour himself a glass from one of his remaining bottles of fine wines.
Read the original article on Insider
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