A man looks at bottles of wine on display at the Vinitaly wine expo in Verona April 3, 2009. REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo
Posted on 10/16/2009 9:55:54 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
PARIS – Over the years, the chief sommelier had forgotten they were there. And when the four bottles of 1875 Armagnac Vieux were finally unearthed from the labyrinthine wine cellar this week, they were covered in a black fungus that looked like matted cat fur.
The landmark Tour d'Argent restaurant, which dates back to 1582, is cleaning out its 450,000-bottle wine cellar, considered one of the best and biggest in the world. It is putting 18,000 bottles up for auction in December, an event that has captured the imagination of French wine lovers.
The restaurant is selling mostly wine but also some very old spirits, like three bottles of a Clos du Griffier cognac from 1788, the year before the French Revolution, as well as the ancient Armagnac, valued at euro400-500 ($595-$743) a bottle. The fuzzy fungus is nothing to worry about — it thrives on the fumes of such spirits and is easily wiped away.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Seems cheap to me, but tempting just out of curiosity.
A man looks at bottles of wine on display at the Vinitaly wine expo in Verona April 3, 2009. REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo
So the fungus doesn’t send mycelia through the cork?
Way out of my price range, but I’d love a taste of that cognac.
uhh.. woof.
Winegrower Leopold Kerbl (L) and his family harvest Chardonnay grapes in his vineyard in Klosterneuburg, the neighbouring city north of Vienna October 11, 2009. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader (AUSTRIA FOOD AGRICULTURE SOCIETY)
a testament to the winemakers or the cork makers back then.. if true
TorQ. right up your alley. Cognac anyone?
Seems cheap to me, but tempting just out of curiosity.
Cheap indeed - just for being able to brag about it. I tasted some 90 y/o (non-vintage) cognac recently. It was running about $300 a bottle if I remember right.
Polanski interested. Long time grapist.
Yes indeed, along with a fine Perdomo double maduro.
mmmm mmmmm mmmmm
it would be great to sample the Armagnac. I wonder if
the alcohol content has suffered any during the years.
Also how did those avoid being added to Hermann Goering’s
winecellar?
Will you mix it with a coke and a squeeze of lemon?
MD 20/20 2009 about $3 a bottle
Take that wine snobs....
“Will you mix it with a coke and a squeeze of lemon?”
No way - that would be a crime. Neat with a large cigar
on the side :>)
Too old for his tastes.
I remember when that sold for 75 cents a bottle.
Take that wine snobs....
And here I've spent the last 8 years here building the reputation that Slim's everywhere are believers in the finer drinkables. Shame sir, shame!
“Two Buck Chuck” alert.
Seriously, a few years ago I was a participant in an impromtu wine tasting at my friends house.
We had a bottle of Camus’ Cabernet-Sauvignon (approx. $120), a Wood Duck Merlot, I brought a Blackstone Merlot, and my friend, Kelly, brought a “Two Buck Chuck”.
Now the Camus is like “Liquid-Sex”, so that was an easy one to pick out.
However, the Two Buck Chuck was rated higher than the $80
Wood Duck.
You’re not going to believe this but I just bought 4 bottles of this lot at Costco. Just a matter of good timing on my part...
You can buy dang near anything there these days.. lol
Calling all the perverts? I thought they were called "gay" these days!
I don’t want to know what they do with the bottle.
Onophile
Mmmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmm.
But were they grape grapes?
I estimate that I visited him every six weeks or so, with each visit averaging three hours or more. While tasting his wines from Kabinett to Trockenbeerenauslese, we had great conversations about anything and everything, but spent most of our time talking about cars.
Towards the end of my 4 year tour, or the second or third bottle, or both, we went from speaking English to German.
Even though I only bought a case on each trip, he usually opened up a bottle of his prized Eiswein, a vintage so limited in volume that the wine labels were individually typed.
Back then, a half-bottle of 1976 trockenbeerenauslese went for about $60/bottle. It was a bit sweet for me, but the eiswein was the best bottle of wine I've ever had.
Good times, great memories.
A bit off topic, but here goes - I’ve only visited Paris once about 15 years ago. Two restaurants on one of the islands in the Seine had great names that were memorable. One was My Ancestors Were Gauls and the other was The Sergeant Instructeur.
Anybody have any info about them? Thanks.
There’s a Fungus among us... Speaking of Fungus we had 2 inches of rain here in your homeland and I can hear the Chanterelles popping put of the duff in the spruce forests up north a bit. The King Boletes will be a little later and I would have to kill you if I told you we just have to walk across the road for all we can eat...
I quit eating mushrooms years ago, preferred cactus anyway. ;)
Unlike wine, distilled spirits do not age in the bottle. So a bottle of cognac that aged in wood for 10 years and was bottled yesterday will be better than a bottle of cognac that aged in wood for only 5 years but was bottled 100 years ago.
Well that right there could be a problem...
:)
Probably quality masonry.
From the article: “A sign marks the spot where a brick wall was built in 1940 to hide the best bottles during the Nazi occupation in World War II.”
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