Now that's a wine list!

I'm amazed to read about a wine auction held by a French restaurant. Do note (in bold print at the bottom) how much they had left after the auction!

A 1788 bottle of Cognac has fetched the top price at an auction of wine from one of the world's most famous cellars.

A French entrepreneur bought the bottle from the Tour D'Argent restaurant for 25,000 euros [US $36,832.50], with the proceeds to go to charity, reports the BBC.

Some 18,000 bottles were sold for more than 1.5 million euros [US $2.21 million] at the auction - much higher than the expected takings of 1m euros.

The restaurant says it hopes to renew the cellar's contents after the sale.

Andre Terrail, who runs the restaurant said he hoped to add new wines from different parts of France to the cellar.

"The past two days were very moving to me," he said at the end of the auction.

"Every bottle sold in this sale will have to find the right moment and the right atmosphere to be appreciated to the fullest," he said.

"Buyers acquired not only excellent wines, but also a large part of our history and soul."

Two other bottles of the 1788 Cognac - from one year before the French Revolution - went for 21,066 euros [US $31,036.54] and 18,588 euros [US $27,385.70].

The restaurant, which was founded in 1582 and is on the left bank of the Seine, was popular with French royalty before it was stormed in the French Revolution.

Its wine list is 400 pages long, with no fewer than 15,000 choices, and it still has at least 420,000 bottles left following the auction.

Another report in the Daily Telegraph gives more background information about the auction. Recommended reading.

Now, how do I arrange to get to Paris to sample some of those 400,000 bottles they have left? And, at those prices, can I afford the trip?

Peter