Bordeaux: A rare Burgundy has emerged as the world's most expensive wine at more than USD 15,000 a bottle, and it is not a Romanee-Conti, according to the WineSearcher website.
Instead it is a Henri Jayer wine with the USD 15,195 price tag, and Bordeaux's top-of-the-line Petrus is far down the list at 18th place.
It is a 1985 Richebourg Grand Cru created by Jayer, a winemaker widely considered a visionary in the business who died in 2006 aged 84.
WineSearcher, founded in London in 1999, released the annual list this month of the 50 most expensive wines in the world based on price lists from nearly 55,000 wine merchants.
The analysis concerned more than seven million wines of all vintages, taking an average per bottle. Burgundies occupy the top three spots on the list, and 40 of the 50.
In fact it is another Henri Jayer wine, his Cros-Parantoux, Vosne-Romanee Premier Cru, that occupies third place at USD 8,832 a bottle.
Romanee-Conti, Burgundy's most famous fine wine, is second at USD 13,314 and the vineyard has two other bottles on the list.
Bordeaux, for all its prestige, has only two items on the list, both Pomerols: the Petrus and a Le Pin. Two German winemakers, Egon Mueller and Joh Jos Pruem, each have two bottles on the list, including Mueller's Scharzhofberger Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese demi-sec selling for USD 6,630 at fourth place.
The only other non-French wine is Californian vintner Stanley Kroenke's Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon, coming in at 14th place with a USD 2,884 price tag.
