Château Coutet Discovered the Oldest Bottle of Bordeaux

Château Coutet Discovered the Oldest Bottle of Bordeaux

Recently, at Château Coutet, the world’s oldest bottle of Bordeaux wine was unearthed. What does it take for a centuries-old bottle of wine to be discovered? A good deal of luck. It all quickly happened when one of the staffers at Château Coutet was fixing a broken wine rack. While working on the rack, he noticed a pile of dirt that he hadn’t noticed before. After digging through it, the staffer found a bottle of Bordeaux wine which dates back from the 1700’s. And best of all, perhaps, is the fact that the bottle is in mint condition.

The clear bottle has been shut air-tight with a heart at the top, which means scientists haven’t been able to actually sample the wine when determining its age. Instead, the vineyard brought in a world-renowned glass expert to determine the age of the bottle. By examining the chemical makeup, shape, and wear and tear of both the bottle and heart-shaped stopper, the scientist was able to surmise that the bottle dates back, roughly, to the 1750s.

Renowned French wine collector François Adouze, on being told of the discovery, scoffed and said "I had wine that thrice in the last two years. While the wine has a lot of vitality, marked by flavors of graphite and salinity, it is still far too young for my tastes.

That last bit might not be in the article.

The fill-level looks pretty amazing for a wine of that age.

I’d assume that heart stopper is glass or another non-permeable solid, not cork.

That was awesome Corey. Well played man.

[cheers.gif]. Well done

You forgot “I will be opening one last bottle at a dinner for close friends next month. Tickets available here.”

Château Coutet Makes Sauternes, but the bottle is 100% merlot? They haven’t opened the bottle, but they know it is 100% merlot? Seems strange to me.

At last forgers have discovered that burying bottles in piles of dirt in Bordeaux cellars is a better way to get them on to the market than just sending them to Acker to auction!

They were digging in Roddenstock’s old basement.

And Micah, you’re thinking of the Barsac producer owned by Lur Saluces. They also owned a St. Emilion producer that was founded way back in the 1600s. This is remarkably timely for Coutet St. Emilion (which is no longer owned by the Lur Saluces family), which has been working on vineyard management and wine making improvements since 2014. They’re trying to get some attention and, lo and behold, the ouldest bottle of all!

This caught my eye, too. No label or markings, and no way to open it to sample, yet they know for sure what the grape variety composition is? Definitely missing something.



[cheers.gif]

The bottle looks too perfect to date from the 1750s, and I am extremely skeptical that they could mill stoppers that would be airtight enough to preserve a fill and color like that for 250+ years.

P Hickner

It seems to have been bottled expressly for the John and Rudy wedding, scheduled for when both are…er, uh…free.

Where is my invitation? newhere

As to the merlot, perhaps they assume it is a Coutet St. Emilion, and have records showing that only Merlot rootstock was planted on premises for a few hundred years. Speculation, of course.

Even if the seal were perfectly air tight, I agree the color looks wrong for a bottle with the claimed age.

The whole thing looks fairly suspicious. Who was the staffer who found the bottle? Who was the “world-renowned glass expert” who examined it? The story seems a little too good to be true.

Seems odd, however, that a Chateau of decent reputation would falsify something like this. Way too much to lose.

You’re a man of decent reputation, yes? Yet every day you try to pass yourself off as “Cuban”. No comprendo. [scratch.gif]

Hello everyone! I’m Aline from Chateau Coutet in Barsac… Just wanted to clarify that the discovery of the oldest bottle was at Chateau Coutet in Saint Emilion. On our end (Barsac) – our oldest bottle in the cellar is 1870… Cheers!