John Kapon knew that the bottle of 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti up for sale at his New-York based wine seller’s auction last month was going to do well. After all, it was one of only 600 bottles of the burgundy produced in a year marked in history as end of World War II, and considered one the greatest vintages of all time.
Still, it was a little shocking when the bottle sold for $812,500—setting a new world record for a bottle of wine sold at auction at nearly 50% more than the record price that same bottle had fetched in 2018. “Scarcity really drives the bus,” says Kapon. “When it comes to really rare, and really old wines among the greatest, people don’t really care what they pay for it.”
