Some Nobody Pissed Away $558,000 and Is Now the Sophisticated Owner of World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine 

Yesterday, a very rich and very important person let it be known to the world that it is now socially acceptable to taste the sweet flavor of a $10,000 sip of liquid, marinate for a few fleeting seconds in its expensive soupéon, swish it around on your tongue as it seeps into your bloodstream, pass it through your urinary tract, and deposit it into the New York City sewer system. That person purchased a record-breaking $558,000 bottle of wine at Sotheby’s New York, which is $93,000 per glass, assuming there are six glasses per bottle, and roughly $10,000 per sip, assuming you are taking eight to ten sips per glass (by offhand estimate). Sotheby’s description of the contents of the 1945 Romanée Conti has a sinister ring, like the dark magical properties of an item you would ingest before being rolled away by Oompa Loompas:

Rare and wonderful. The Romanée Conti vineyard was uprooted after the ‘45 vintage. The best bottles are so concentrated and exotic, with seemingly everlasting power – a wine at peace with itself.

Afterward, a bottle of identical vintage and size sold for $496,000, which is exactly the same amount of rare except less wonderful by precisely $62,000.

According to Newsweek, the bottles broke the previous 2010 price record for a standard-sized bottle which went to three bottles of 1869 Château Lafite-Rothschild averaging $232,692 each.