As Chirac Leaves The Palace, His Wine Departs For South America

On the very day French President Jacques Chirac left the Elysée Palace The Antique Wine Company (antique-wine.com) finalised a deal with a South American businessman, who acquired the finest bottles from the Paris City Hall wine cellar, amassed during Chirac’s time as Mayor of the French Capital.

Sold off by the current socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoe, the intention was for the cellar to be split up bottle by bottle, enabling the people of Paris to purchase individual items as a souvenir of Chirac’s regime. However, in the extraordinary frenzy of media attention, as the French vied with English, American, Chinese and Russian buyers, Antique Wine recognised a greater potential: to purchase and assemble the finest examples from the cellar as a unique collection.

In line with Antique Wine Company’s practice of ensuring its customers get maximum enjoyment from their wine, the company also commissioned Linley, the renowned London design studio owned by Viscount Linley, to create a scale model Paris City Hall case, crafted in the finest precious woods.

Stephen Williams, Founder of the Antique Wine Company, comments “Our main business is not only supplying but also managing every detail of our clients wine cellars. In developing close relationships with them, we notice a common feature is that they like to have fun with wine, enjoying the very best vintages to enhance entertainment for their dinner guests and add cultural value to their social life. This moment in French history rang all the right bells for us, and gave us the opportunity to offer one client something rare and precious.

“The stunning level of interest in the Paris City Hall Cellar from around the world has inspired us to create another remarkable offering in conjunction with Linley. This will be a very limited edition of similar hand crafted scale model cabinets featuring each of the five first growth Bordeaux chateaux, each containing the top six exceptional vintages of the century. The limited edition is expected to sell for around $250,000.”

This is all exciting news for the world’s serious wine aficionados, but hasn’t Stephen Williams forgotten one little thing? Not to put too fine a point on it, but what exactly did Chirac’s Cellar fetch? “Oh that” says Williams airily, “a cool £300,000 ($600,000).”

Visit the dedicated microsite at Paris-city-hall-cellar.antique-wine.com.