Most expensive bottle of Port ever sold!!!

[Tom Archer]

Highest price for a magnum is an interesting angle - the highest I know is the relatively modest sum of £1573 ($2500) for some Graham 1897s last year..

[Roy Hersh]

Alex wrote:

And now in 2013 we have seen a bottle of NN31 sell for $10,000.

Yes, each of the two bottles purchased this month (different sources; one private, one a restaurant) were $10k USD.

Agree about the laziness of journos when it comes to this issue.

But Alex's calculation on the 1931 Nacional in today's dollars is not what was realized back in 2006. Not quibbling, just want to show what appears on the Christie's history of the sale of that bottle at the time, which is really what counts:

Price Realized

£4,840 (Set Currency)
($8,930)

Estimate
£1,200 - £1,500
($2,214 - $2,768)

Sale Information
Sale 7242 —
Finest and Rarest Wines and Spirits
15 June 2006
London, King Street

[Al B.]

This thread popped up in my Google search when I was looking for the price of a bottle of NN31 which sold in spring 2024. It sold for £22,950 which would have been about $28,950 at the exchange rate at the time.

We've also had the sale of 2 of the Niepoort 1863 Lalique magnum decanters. The most recent I'm aware of (in March 2019) was sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong and sold for HK$1.054m (or $134,000).

I guess those are our current highest prices for bottles and magnums of Port.

[Mike J. W.]

At what point does pricing for these bottles get silly? It's the same with DRC Burgundy or any of the other great wines. Yes it's nice to have something unique and rare, but for wine or Port that usually has a shelf life, prices like the Niepoort 1863 in my opinion is simply obnoxious and stupid.

[Moses Botbol]

Would like to see someone drinking these expensive bottles rather than them languishing in someone's cellar.

[Glenn E.]

At what point does pricing for these bottles get silly?

It's already silly, in my opinion. But that's what happens when something gets famous enough to attract collectors and/or the ultra wealthy for whom dropping $20k on a fancy bottle of wine is just how they make a splash at a random dinner party.

I can at least sort of understand it for a VP like NN31. But that very expensive, very fancy Lalique Niepoort 1863 is only going to get worse the longer you keep it. Sure... very slowly at least at the start... but your very expensive investment is losing value the longer you keep it. It's not appreciating, you're just relying on the Greater Fool theorem.

[Eric Menchen]

At what point does pricing for these bottles get silly?

We've passed that point.

BTW, a month or two ago a bottle of Taylor Scion showed up on WineBid at a price below the initial retail price. I was outbid, but as I recall it was still sold for less than retail. We can debate whether it improved or declined since release ~10 years ago.

[Tom Archer]

At what point does pricing for these bottles get silly?

We've passed that point.

BTW, a month or two ago a bottle of Taylor Scion showed up on WineBid at a price below the initial retail price. I was outbid, but as I recall it was still sold for less than retail. We can debate whether it improved or declined since release ~10 years ago.

It's pretty much unknown for any non-vintage port product to auction for more than it's release price, unless extremes of time have inflation devalued the original price.

I strongly prefer quality tawnies that have a few decades of age on them, and can usually pick them up at auction for around half the price of newly bottled stock

[Roy Hersh]

Glad to have tasted both on several occasions. But they have always been above my pay grade. The 1863 Niepoort, was always just a 750 ml. The first time I ever met Dirk, in early 2002, was the first time I got to try it. Always wonderful. He's poured it a few other times. The last time I had it was when his son Daniel poured it at a tasting that Glenn and I attended just a couple of weeks before Covid if memory serves. Glenn, wasn't it in Jan. 2020? It was supposed to be poured by Dirk at this event. Daniel showed up (surprising all of us) but for a reason that was most unfortunate. Dirk's father Rolf had just died, and he obviously had to attend the funeral.

The 1931 QdNN is wonderful ... when it is. But for the differential between it and 1931 Quinta do Noval ("regular" bottling) is small. I've had them side-by-side a few times and I'd tell anybody who would ask ... save your money. One point difference either way and a HUGE savings going for the regular bottling. I hosted a dinner where 2 bottles of 1931 NN were present in 2013, and the cost then was $10k per. The first one, which I had talked a friend into buying from another friend, was CORKED. The rest of the story has been told lots of times.

Anybody who would pay that kind of money for either bottle ... (could literally travel around the world for that same money) needs their noggin examined.

But scarcity will bring out the big spenders whether it is on Port, homes, diamonds/jewels, table wine, art, boats, coins, cars etc.

[Glenn E.]

The last time I had it was when his son Daniel poured it at a tasting that Glenn and I attended just a couple of weeks before Covid if memory serves. Glenn, wasn't it in Jan. 2020?

The 1931 QdNN is wonderful ... when it is. But for the differential between it and 1931 Quinta do Noval ("regular" bottling) is small. I've had them side-by-side a few times and I'd tell anybody who would ask ... save your money.

It was Feb 2, 2020. The Decades Tasting. COVID was starting to make the news, and just 4 weeks later everything shut down.

We also had a QdN 1931 at that event, and while my notes expressed awe that it was 89 years old and not from 1963 or 1970, for me it only warranted 94 pts which only put it 3rd in its flight. I had it behind the 1955 Mackenzie and the 1970 Graham. In total I had 13 Ports rated higher than it at the event, and 6 others tied with it at 94. It was a great tasting!

The 1863 Niepoort "Mystery Port" scored a 3-way tie for 1st at 98 points with the 1851 Warre and a 1927 Niepoort.

[Andy Velebil]

Glad to have tasted both on several occasions. But they have always been above my pay grade. The 1863 Niepoort, was always just a 750 ml. The first time I ever met Dirk, in early 2002, was the first time I got to try it. Always wonderful. He's poured it a few other times. The last time I had it was when his son Daniel poured it at a tasting that Glenn and I attended just a couple of weeks before Covid if memory serves. Glenn, wasn't it in Jan. 2020? It was supposed to be poured by Dirk at this event. Daniel showed up (surprising all of us) but for a reason that was most unfortunate. Dirk's father Rolf had just died, and he obviously had to attend the funeral.

.

Not correct. The 1863 was also bottled, well rebottled, in magnum for the Lalique magnum decanter project. Only a small handful were made. IIRC one put up for auction sold for ~€100,000.

I was also at the tasting in Beverly Hills where Daniel showed up and brought it. It was fabulous. I still have the empty bottle on my shelf.

As for the N31 vs NN31. The regular 31 has in the past decade or two surpassed the Nacional. The Nacional is on a slow downhill slide where the regular is still holding. I know label bias clouds this assessment sometimes, but it’s the truth and people need to realize that. Not just my opinion, but that of one of their previous owners as well.

[Roy Hersh]

Andy,

The 1931 NN can still be excellent and like many other oldies is really a bottle by bottle situation. How many 1931 Nacional have you tried in the past?

Ask Christian Seely his opinion on the 1931. I believe it varies quite a bit from the previous owner. But again, these vary widely, and the regular bottling is certainly more consistent.

[Tom Archer]

My feeling is that NN31 is the Jeanne Calment of port - who actually credited a daily glass of port wine (probably cheap French tawny) as part of her recipe for survival - but then went on to live (supposedly..) for several years more than all others. She had a very clear financial motive to adopt the identity of her late mother, a rare event, and one that casts serious doubt on her authenticity

An outlier, in this case an exceptional wine made from vines of a very tender age, has to be treated as extremely dubious