1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Breaks Record for Most Expensive Bottle of Wine Sold at Auction

A bottle of 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) sold for a record-smashing $812,500 at Acker’s annual La Paulée Auction this weekend. The auction raked in $25 million in total sales from bottles produced by additional famed Burgundian estates like Domaine Dujac, Leflaive, Coche-Dury, and others, and set an additional, 459 unspecified world records related to pricing, according to a press release.

The near-$1 million sale bested the previous world record set at a Sotheby’s auction in 2018 when a different bottle of 1945 DRC went for $558,000, solidifying the cuvée as the current most-prized bottle for wine collectors. 1945 was the final pre-phylloxeric vintage for the beloved Burgundy winery, and the grapes used in this bottling came from vines planted nearly a century earlier.

This weekend’s record-breaking sale comes just months after the January purchase of a 1982 bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle for $162,500, the most expensive American whiskey ever auctioned. The back-to-back new records point to the longstanding appeal of premier alcohol collecting.

The DRC bottles included in the 2026 and 2018 auctions both came from Robert Drouhin’s personal cellar — he was once at the helm of Maison Joseph Drouhin and is one of the most beloved figures in Burgundy.

Acker is a New York City-based wine shop and fine wine auction house whose annual La Paulée event puts expressions from the world’s premier Burgundian producers up for bid. It is also the oldest wine merchant in the U.S.

Buyers are still willing to bid top dollar at Acker despite the merchant’s tempered reputation after its involvement in a number of fraudulent scandals. The infamous Rudy Kurniawan sold a number of forged bottles at Acker auctions where he amassed tens of millions of dollars before his 2012 arrest. In 2021, Acker rescinded the sale of a six-liter DRC bottle, which went for $398,400, after counterfeit concerns emerged. The “the world’s destination for fine and rare wine,” as Acker refers to itself, faced $100,000 in fines two years later for selling forged bourbon.

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