Wine seller

By BILL WARD, Star Tribune

Last update: October 16, 2009 - 10:41 PM

Paris' landmark Tour d'Argent restaurant, which dates to 1582, is cleaning out its 450,000-bottle wine cellar, considered one of the best and biggest in the world. It is putting 18,000 bottles up for auction in December, an event that has captured the imagination of French wine lovers.

"You'll probably see, we've got too many bottles," jokes chief sommelier David Ridgway, ushering visitors into the restaurant's underworld, where bottles are stacked floor to ceiling in a succession of caverns.

Though everything is registered in a computer, there are occasional surprises, such as four bottles of 1875 Armagnac Vieux. Also to be sold are three bottles of a Clos du Griffier cognac from 1788, the year before the French Revolution. Among wines on sale are Chateau Lafite Rothschild (1970, 1982, 1997), Cheval Blanc (1928, 1949, 1966) and Chateau Margaux (1970, 1990).

Estimated prices at the Dec. 7-8 sale start at $15 a bottle and go up to $3,716-$4,459 for each of the 1788 cognacs, one of which will go to charity. The total sale is expected to bring in about $1.5 million.

The restaurant, a family business, was once the summit of French gastronomy. But recent years have brought setbacks. Longtime owner Claude Terrail died in 2006, and his 29-year-old son Andre now runs it. The economic crisis has affected its finances only "a bit," Terrail said, but the wine sale may help fund renovations.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Recent World stories

Iran orders largest-circulation newspaper to close for publishing photo of Baha'i temple - October 16, 2009

Iran orders largest-circulation newspaper to close for publishing photo of Baha'i temple - Iranian authorities have banned the country's largest-circulation newspaper for publishing a photo of a Baha'i temple, state media reported Monday. More