bordeaux

The $40,000 Lobster Press at the Regent Grand Hotel Bordeaux

Filed under: Dining, Gadgets, Luxury Travel & Hotels

It's never too early to start thinking about outfitting your beach house, so might I suggest that The Regent Grand Hotel in Bordeaux, France, offers an idea worth copying.

If you love to eat those delightful sea crustaceans, and who doesn't, you will want to do like the hotel's Michelin-starred restaurant, Le Pressoir d'Argent, and acquire a lobster press.

There aren't very many of these devices in the world -- it's 90 pounds, made of silver, and looks like a cross between something Willy Wonka might dream up and a torture device -- but it's also shiny and adorned with lovely lobster sculptures as it's meant to be used tableside.

The idea is similar to a duck press -- after removing tail and claws, the rest of the lobster is inserted into the press, where a two-person team works the device to press out the lobster juices. (See the gallery for an action shot.) The result: lobster jus, much stronger in flavor than you'd get from the most developed lobster stock. At The Regent, the chef adds the jus to bearnaise sauce, and serves that on top of roasted lobster meat.

The lobster press is are custom made by Christofle, and take 150 hours of labor by ten master craftsmen to create -- they cost 30,000 Euro, just or around $40,700.

Or you can just book a table at the restaurant, and after such grand meal, you'll certainly require a room. It's hard to beat the view at the Royale Suite, which has a terrace jacuzzi -- but I like the Prestige Suites, which come with their own private wine bar within rolling distance of (the very comfy) bed.

Which, come to think of it, is another fine idea for your beach house.

Gallery: The Regent Grand Hotel Bordeaux, France

The Lobster Press in Action at Le Pressoir d'Argent

Lounge Area at Le Pressoir d'Argent, Bordeaux

Dining at Le Pressoir d'Argent: The colors are a bit more subtle at night

Another View of the Dining Room at the Michelin Starred Le Pressoir d'Argent

Tags: bordeaux, bordeaux hotel, france, kitchen gadgets, lobster, travel

New Wine Deal Has Chinese Government Investing Directly In Bordeaux

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

China isn't just collecting Bordeaux wine, Chinese investors are buying land and wineries in Bordeaux. Decanter reports that Philippe Raoux, owner of Chateau d'Arsac in Margaux and wine tourism complex La Winery, sold his Lalande-de-Pomerol estate, Chateau Viaud, to Cofco, a company 100% owned by the Chinese government. According to the article the deal followed three years of negotiations.

The sale was part of a larger business deal, Cofco will also distribute Chateau d'Arsac in China, along with other Bordeaux wines from Raoux's merchant business. The company will also bring Raoux's Signe Œnologique (wine star sign) concept to China to use in wine education. Raoux's son Pierre has moved to Beijing to work with the company to create a Bordeaux branded wine aimed specifically at the Chinese market.

Several Chinese companies and families have invested in Bordeaux in the last several years but recently the partnerships have more of a reciprocal nature. As we reported back in 2009, Chateau Lafite Rothschild formed a partnership with CITIC, China's largest state-owned investment company, to develop a winery on the peninsula of Penglai in Shandong province, an area said to be China's Bordeaux.

Interest in wine in China has risen dramatically over the past few years and with its large population and spending power that interest is only expected to increase.

Tags: bordeaux, bordeaux wine, chateau de viaud, china, cofco

First Bordeaux Producers Certified Organic

by David Kiley (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

The year 1855 turns out to have been a very green year for wine. Two Bordeaux estates that gained classification status that year are the first of the "Growth Estates" to gain 21st century organic certification.

First growth Chateaux Guiraud (Sauterne) and Fifth Growth Chateau Pontet-Canet (Pauillac) were each recognized by France's Agence Bio (AB) as certifiably organic producers, the former beginning with its 2011 vintage and the latter beginning with its 2010 wines.

Depending on the vintage, Guiraud's wines are priced from two to four digits per bottle, with an average across vintages of $45 to $121. With one exception, Pontet-Canet bottle prices have generally been in the triple digits with an average across vintages of $62 to $172.

The two venerable Bordeaux wine producers of the Gironde River area were inducted into the original 1855 Bordeaux classification under different names. In 1766, a merchant named Pierre Guiraud bought La Maison Noble du Bayle, which was the estate's name when it achieved First Growth status for white wine. Originally named Canet, Pontet-Canet was established in the early 18th century by Jean-François de Pontet, royal governor of the Médoc. Canet gained Fifth Growth status for red wine.

Gallery: First Bordeaux Estates To Certify "Organic."

Tags: bordeaux, Chateau Guiraud, Chateau Pontet-Canet, organic, wine

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Andrew Lloyd Webber's Wine Collection Sells Strong In Hong Kong

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Auctions

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's wine collection achieved a strong result in a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong on January 22. Part of Webber's cellar was sold in London by Sotheby's back in 1997 and took in $6.1 million. The current sale included lots of 10 cases of the first growths of the 2005 vintage, Petrus 2000, Cheval Blanc 1982, Domaine de la Romanee Conti La Tache, and Domaine Leflaive. Many of the older wines have been cellared at Sydmonton Court, his 16th century home in Berkshire, England Newer wines have been kept in professional storage.

The sale was estimated to bring in between $2.8 to $4.1 million but brought in 43.3 million Hong Kong dollars ($5.6 million), including the 21% buyer's premium. The Wall Street Journal reports that the six-hour auction, which took place at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, was filled to capacity. The top lot was a 1982 case of Château Pétrus (12 bottles) that went to an Asian buyer for $77,564. The WSJ article has a list of the top ten lots.

Tags: andrew lloyd webber, bordeaux, CHATEAU PETRUS, hong kong wine, hong kong wine auction, wine auction

Chateau Carmes Haut-Brion Sold In Bordeaux

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

A small Bordeaux chateau has sold for a record high price. Decanter reports that Château Carmes Haut-Brion in Bordeaux sold for 18 million euros. The vines cover 4.7 hectares with three hectares of parkland and the property has a 19th century chateau. Local paper Sud Ouest says this is the highest amount ever paid per hectare for a vineyard in Bordeaux. The vineyard is located close to Château Haut Brion. The 2009 vintage sells for around $50 a bottle.

The new owner is Patrice Pichet, head of Bordeaux real estate company Groupe Pichet. This is the first vineyard purchase for Pichet leading some to question whether Pichet is interested in the land or the vines. For his part, Pichet appears to be interested in wine, he released a statement saying that Groupe Pichet is "planning a series of investments, starting with the building of new vinification facilities, and the restoration of the park to encourage biodiversity."

Tags: bordeaux, chateau carmes haut brion, wine

In China Selling Empty Bottles of Chateau Lafite Rotschild Is A Booming Business

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

We already knew that Chateau Lafite Rothschild was hot in China but apparently the Bordeaux is so popular that counterfeiters have been scavenging the empty bottles to refill them. The Telegraph reports on the shadowy and lucrative world of China's bottle dealers. The article quotes one dealer who offers the equivalent of over $400 for a good vintage bottle of Lafite Rothschild in top condition. His firm collected empties from bars and restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing.

Alcohol forgeries have long been a problem in China with premium spirits, such as Maotai being frequently faked. Ice wine is also a popular target for fraud. Wine dealers and fine restaurants are taking precautions, inspecting bottles careful for signs of tampering before buying but some older wines tend to be re-corked making unmasking the refilled bottles even more of a challenge.

Tags: bordeaux, bordeaux wine, chateau lafite rothschild, Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, china, wine fraud

Chateau Lafite Rothschild: Exquisite Wine from Bordeaux

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

It's safe to say that Halloween isn't celebrated in Asia with quite the same vigor as it is in the U.S. But this year, the last week of October brought some scary wine prices to Hong Kong: a lot of three bottles of 1869 Chateau Lafite Rothschild went for $698,076, or $232,692 per bottle---setting a new world record for the most expensive bottle of wine sold at auction.

"I happened to have one, from a different source, a few weeks before the auction and it was fabulous," says Jamie Ritchie, CEO and President of Americas and Asia for Sotheby's Wine. "We served it blind and the nearest guess on the age was 1959. What really made these bottles rare is the fact that they came directly from Chateau Lafite's cellars and were the oldest wines in the auction---you cannot get better provenance than that."

That provenance has been a part of Chateau Lafite for hundreds of years, part of the reason it's the winner of the Luxist Editors' Choice award for best in wine. Lafite's current incarnation dates back to 1868, when Baron James de Rothschild---a patriarch of the famous European banking family of the same name---purchased the Lafite estate, which had already been producing wine for at least a century.

Tags: awards-main, best wine, bordeaux, bordeaux wine, chateau lafite, chateau lafite rothschild, Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, Jamie Ritchie, luxist-awards, sothebys, winners-wine, winners-wines

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La Soiree des Grands Crus

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Wine, Events

A group of young chateau owners from Bordeaux are descending on New York City on January 27 for a unique wine event. For La Soiree des Grands Crus, 82 Mercer will be transformed into a modern wine cellar for the night where guests can taste 29 Grand Cru Classé wines and mingle with 17 proprietors representing 23 Bordeaux estates. The event will include the Breitling Grand Cru Challenge, a blind tasting for guests. Get your palate ready, the winner will receive a Breitling Chronomat B01 watch (worth more than $7690). Prizes also include about $20,000 worth of incredible Bordeaux, including some magnums and double magnums. Other lifestyle brands including Hugo Boss and Born will also be on hand and Patissier and Chocolatier Francois Payard of FPBNYC will create chocolate pairings for the evening, one for each of six Bordeaux appellations. Tickets are $185 per person.

Tags: bordeaux, bordeaux wine, new york city events, wine, wine event

Andrew Lloyd Webber Puts Wine Up For Sale In Hong Kong

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Auctions

Many wine collectors are sending their collections to Asia to sell to take advantage of the growing appetite for French wine there. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber plans to sell off part of his cellar at a Sotheby's auction to take place in Hong Kong on January 22. "I am very happy that Sotheby's is bringing part of my precious wine collection to Hong Kong, particularly given that many wine connoisseurs are now in Asia," he said.

Part of Webber's cellar was sold in London by Sotheby's back in 1997 and took in $6.1 million. The current sale will include lots of 10 cases of the first growths on the 2005 vintage, Petrus 2000, Cheval Blanc 1982, Domaine de la Romanee Conti La Tache, and Domaine Leflaive. Many of the older wines have been cellared at Sydmonton Court, his 16th century home in Berkshire. Newer wines have been kept in professional storage. The sale is estimated to bring in between $2.8 to $4.1 million.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber wine collection represents the first half of a two-day sale that will also feature more wine from Henning Thoresen's Bordeaux Winebank 2000 Collection.

Tags: andrew lloyd webber, bordeaux, bordeaux wine, Bordeaux Winebank, Sothebys International Realty, Wii, wine auction

Chinese painter Xu Lei Creates Chateau Mouton Rothschild Label

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Art

Showcasing just how important the Chinese wine market is when it comes to Bordeaux, Chateau Mouton Rothschild has chosen Chinese painter Xu Lei as the artist to create the wine label for the 2008 vintage. Xu is artistic director of Today Art Museum in Beijing. His label is an ink drawing with the Mouton symbol, a ram standing between two halves of the moon covered with vines and grapes. The label represents wine as a bridge between two hemispheres. The choice of a Chinese artist has driven up the price of the 2008 vintage. Decanter reports that prices went up 20% overnight on the back of the announcement, and the wine is currently trading at around £10,000 per case. The bottle also bears the Chinese symbol for the figure eight, a symbol that is considered to be auspicious.

The Mouton Rothschild Artists label has featured a variety of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Lucien Freud and Prince Charles. Check out some examples in the gallery below.

Gallery: Chateau Mouton Rothschild Labels

Tags: bordeaux, chateau mouton rothschild, french, mouton rothschild, wine, xu lei

Large Bottle of Cheval Blanc Sets New Auction Record

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

A massive imperial-size bottle of Cheval Blanc 1947 has set a new world record for a single bottle sold at auction. The bottle (which hold the equivalent of eight standard sized bottles) was found in the secret cellar of a wine collector.

It sold for $304,580 on Tuesday at the fine wine auction at Christie's in Geneva. Just last month the record for the most expensive wine bottle had been set in Hong Kong when three bottles of Châteaux Lafite-Rothschild 1869 sold at a Hong Kong auction by Sotheby's for an astounding hammer price of $232,692 a bottle (the Lafite-Rothschild is still the champ if you are measuring price per milliliter).

[via IB Times]

Tags: bordeaux, cheval blanc, christies, imperial bottle, most expensive, most expensive wine, wine auction

Sotheby's to Auction Bordeaux Winebank's "2000" Collection

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Auctions

Jamie Ritchie, auctioneer, presiding over a Sotheby's wine auction.

Sotheby's will offer an important selection of the 2000 vintage from Bordeaux Winebank, the company set up by Norwegian businessman Henning Thoresen that specializes in offering Bordeaux with the "Five Star Provenance" system. The sale celebrates the 10th anniversary of the great 2000 vintage.

A selection from the Bordeaux Winebank collection will make up a substantial part of the Finest and Rarest Wines sale on November 13th in New York with 128 lots expected to sell for between $890,500 to $1.3 million in total (not including the buyer's premium).

The auction, which will feature such wines as Chateau Lafite, Chateau Latour, Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Margaux, is expected to be one of the highest-value various-owner wine sales ever held at Sotheby's New York. The auction will take place at Sotheby's location at 1334 York Avenue at East 72nd Street in Manhattan. Sotheby's Jamie Ritchie, Head of Wine, North America (and a Luxist Awards Expert Panelist), will serve as the lead auctioneer tomorrow in New York (see photo above).

Gallery: Sotheby's Bordeaux Winebank 2000 Collection Auction

Tags: auction, awards-main, Bordeaux, Bordeaux 2000, Bordeaux Winebank, chateau lafite, chateau margaux, chateau mouton rothschild, Jamie Ritchie, luxist-awards, Sothebys, wine

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Wine 'Superlot' Sells For $320,000

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Auctions

One bidder at Skinner's recent wine sale on November 2 basically bought a wine cellar's worth of wine in one swoop of the auction paddle. The Bordeaux wine 'superlot' was comprised of 50 cases of wine including 10 cases of Chateau Haut Brion 1995-2004; 10 cases Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1995-2004; 10 cases of Chateau Latour 1995-2004; 10 cases of Chateau Margaux 1995-2004 and 10 cases of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1995-2004. The first growth Bordeaux are basically the blue chip stocks of the wine world making this an easy investment for someone interested in filling a wine cellar very quickly with some of the most famous brands. The estimate for the lot was $200,000-300,000. It sold for $320,000.

[via Paul Fraser Collectibles]

Tags: auction, bordeaux, bordeaux wine, chateau haut-brion, chateau lafite, chateau latour, chateau margaux, chateau mouton rothschild, superlot, wine

Chateau Haut-Brion's Prince Robert of Luxembourg's Latest Venture

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Prince Robert of Luxembourg, managing director of Domaine Clarence Dillon

Prince Robert of Luxembourg, the 42 year old managing director of Domaine Clarence Dillon, oversees, and owns along with his family, two of the most prestigious Premier Grand Cru estates in Bordeaux: Chateau Haut-Brion and Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion. The Prince sat down with Luxist to discuss his strategy to expand his family's business by producing a more affordable wine on a larger scale. His newest creation is "Clarendelle", which he hopes will be the first super premium-branded Bordeaux wine.

Named in honor of his maternal great-grandfather, Clarence Dillon, a New York banker who bought Chateau Haut-Brion in 1935, Clarendelle is offered at a lower price point than the wines produced by the Prince's well known estates---$15 to $25 a bottle compared to well over $300 a bottle for Chateau Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion. Domaine Clarence Dillon is able to accomplish that by buying wine from dozens of other Bordeaux winemakers and blending it together. Only a small portion of the wine comes from the Domaine Clarence Dillon estates.

Gallery: Domaine Clarence Dillion

Luxist: Tell us why you are buying wine from other Bordeaux winemakers, rather than grapes?

Prince Robert: There's a great advantage to buying wine, rather than grapes. Buying wine gives us more quality control because we already have a finished product. We are not buying grapes because we would not know how they will evolve. The wines that are purchased for Clarendelle, represents the same grape varietals used for the Chateau Haut-Brion and Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion wines.

Tags: bordeaux, bordeaux wine, Chateau Haut-Brion, Clarence Dillon Wines, Clarendelle, Haut-Brion, La Mission Haut-Brion, luxist-awards, Prince Robert, Prince Robert of Luxembourg, wine

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Chateau Lafite Rothschild Wins the Readers' Choice Award for Best International Red Wine

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Chateau Lafite Rothschild is nominated for Best International Red Wine.

With a history dating back centuries and a claim to the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold, Chateau Lafite Rothschild is a fitting winner for the Luxist Awards' Readers' Choice Award in the best international red wine category.

In 1787, scarcely ten years after some ambitious colonists declared a new country across the Atlantic, a small French winery called Chateau Lafite produced a very special bottle. Little did the resident oenologist know that nearly 200 years later, the bottle would sell for 105,000 pounds – roughly $160,000 – setting the mark for price that has stood since 1985.

When Baron James de Rothschild, a patriarch of the famous European banking family, purchased Chateau Lafite in 1868, it was perhaps a sign of a good investment recognized. But the Baron never saw his purchase bear fruit – he passed away just three months later, leaving the renamed Chateau Lafite-Rothschild estate to his three sons.

Gallery: Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Over a century later, Chateau Lafite Rothschild remains one of the world's most esteemed wine estates, producing some 35,000 cases per year. Much like the record-setting bottle from 1787, even the most recent vintages continue to rapidly appreciate in value – the 2008 Lafite Rothschild was valued at 1,500 pounds upon its release, but bottle prices more than doubled within two weeks. Baron James would be proud.

Tags: awards-main, bordeaux, bordeaux wine, chateau lafite, Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, Luxist-Awards, red wine, wine, winner-wine, winners-wine, winners-wines

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