Christies London has set a new European auction record for a case of wine - 12 bottles of Hermitage La Chapelle 1961 which sold for a record-breaking £123,750 - over £10,000 a bottle.

This smashes the auction house’s previous record set in June 2006 when 12 bottles of 1978 Romanee-Conti from Domaine de la Romanee-Conti fetched £93,500.

The Finest and Rarest Wine auction, held on 20 September, made £1,794,397, selling 95% of lots offered.

A single bottle of Hermitage La Chapelle 1937 netted £5,500, while a second case of Hermitage La Chapelle 1961 sold for £112,500, making the £22,000 paid for 12 bottles of 1961 Château Mouton Rothschild appear modest in comparison.

‘A single case of the famed 1961 Hermitage La Chapelle set a world auction record for a case of wine from the Rhone, illustrating the continued ascent of Rhone in the international wine markets’, said Chris Munro, Christie’s director of wine.

The world record for a case of wine is currently held by Christie’s Los Angeles, which in September last year sold six magnums of Mouton Rothschild 1945 for $345,000 (£172,000).

The most expensive wine ever remains the – now notorious – single bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite from the cellar of Thomas Jefferson, which sold at Christie’s London in December 1985 for £105,000.

Other notable one-bottle lots include a magnum of Hermitage La Chapelle 1961, which made £16,080 at Christies Geneva in May 2007, and a bottle of 1811 Chateau d’Yquem, which sold at Christie’s London in November 2005 for £18,700.

Written by Lucy Shaw

Lucy Shaw
Lucy Shaw
Decanter Magazine, Restaurant Critic, Wine Writer & Editor

Lucy Shaw is a wine and spirits editor and writer, based in London. She joined Decanter 2007 as Editorial Assistant and left three years later to join The Drinks Business, where she is now the editor. Her special interests are the wine regions of Spain, South America and Champagne, as well as reviewing the latest restaurants on London’s dining scene.