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Paris restaurant auctions cellar 1788 cognac tops Paris wine sale
(1 day later)
Wines from one of the world's most famous cellars, belonging to La Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris, are going under the hammer. A 1788 bottle of cognac has fetched the top price at an auction of wine from a Paris restaurant that boasts one of the world's most famous cellars.
A total of 18,000 bottles - including wine from Cognac, Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux - are to be auctioned. A French entrepreneur bought the bottle from the Tour D'Argent restaurant for 25,000 euros (£22,650), with the proceeds to go to charity.
The sale is intended to raise 1m euros (£0.9m) to renew the cellar's contents and ensure the restaurant keeps its Michelin star. Some 18,000 bottles were sold for more than 1.5m euros at the auction - well above the expected takings of 1m euros.
Its wine list is 400 pages long, with no fewer than 15,000 tipples. The restaurant says it hopes to renew the cellar's contents after the sale.
Andre Terrail, who runs the restaurant - the third generation of his family to do so - said he hoped to add new wines from different parts of France, including the Loire Valley, to the cellar.Andre Terrail, who runs the restaurant - the third generation of his family to do so - said he hoped to add new wines from different parts of France, including the Loire Valley, to the cellar.
"It is a heritage my father contributed to and which I must pass on," Mr Terrail told Agence France Presse. 'History and soul'
"We must keep it alive and build on it," he said of the 450,000-bottle cellar. "The past two days were very moving to me," he said in a statement at the end of the auction.
'Like my children' "Every bottle sold in this sale will have to find the right moment and the right atmosphere to be appreciated to the fullest," he said.
The sale has had wine fans licking their lips in anticipation - as all bottles were bought directly from the winemakers and have been kept in the cellar's careful controlled conditions, making them a low-risk investment. "Buyers acquired not only excellent wines, but also a large part of our history and soul."
FROM THE PM PROGRAMME class="" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qskw">More from PM Wines from around France fetched well above their asking price.
According to the auctioneers, some bottles were expected to reach 5,000 euros (£4,500), though others were more accessible at 10 euros a bottle. Two other bottles of the 1788 cognac - from one year before the French Revolution - went for 21,066 euros and 18,588 euros.
Profits from the sale of one of the dustiest bottles to go under the hammer - a 1788 cognac expected to fetch 2,500 euros (£2,259) - will be given to charity. The restaurant, which was founded in 1582 and is on the left bank of the Seine, was popular with French royalty before it was stormed in the French Revolution.
La Tour d'Argent's chief sommelier, David Ridgway, said he had bought most of the wines being auctioned off during his 30 years at the restaurant. More recently it has attracted politicians and actors, though it has lost two of its three Michelin stars.
"Each bottle is a bit like one of my children: you see them go and you're always sad but at the same time they're going to make space for more, so it's a sad occasion but a happy one at the same time," he told the BBC. It is famed for its signature dish of duck served in its own blood and for its views of Notre Dame cathedral.
He added that the sale was going "remarkably well" despite the recession, with some bottles fetching 30% above the original estimate. Its wine list is 400 pages long, with no fewer than 15,000 choices, and it still has at least 420,000 bottles left following the auction.