OK, a confession, it was actually 25 years ago. In fact it was almost exactly 25 years ago. On June 26th 1985 Farr Vintners sold a bottle of Lafite 1811 for £12,000 in an auction at the Café Royal in London, beating the world record price of £8500 per bottle. It was quite a big story at the time and was featured on the ITN national news.
This was an early event in the history of Farr Vintners and I'd almost forgotten about it until I came across this clip on the internet in the ITN archive. Here you will see a 25 year old Stephen Browett, 25 years ago, being interviewed by a news reporter just before the auction took place.
www.itnsource.com/shotlist/ITN/1985/06/26/AS260685006/
Of course Farr Vintners has gone on to sell more Lafite than probably any other wine merchant in the world. Sales of Lafite have soared in the last year thanks to huge demand from the Far East and the dynamic work of Jo Purcell and our Hong Kong sales team. In the last 12 months we have sold over 5000 cases of Lafite and Carruades Lafite! Back in 1985 it would have been hard to imagine the prices of Lafite today or that The People's Republic of China would become one of the world's biggest markets for First Growth Bordeaux. The 2009 vintage is already trading, controversially, at £10,000 per case before it has even been released by the Chateau and, most extraordinary of all, Carruades Lafite is now selling in some vintages at a higher price than Haut Brion.
