The Most Expensive Wine Bottle Ever Was Sold, But There’s A Catch

In the world of fine wine, money is no object for big dog collectors. Prices can range from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single bottle. Factors such as a winery’s reputation, amount of bottles produced, and collector demand determine the price of a particular bottle — especially during auctions. Case in point: One of the most expensive bottles of wine ever sold went for $350,000 on the weekend of November 3.

The wine was a 2015 Setting Wines Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, and it was purchased at the Emeril Lagasse Foundation auction in New Orleans to raise money for children’s charities. All in all, the charity raised $3.5 million, but the California wine is getting the most attention. Most notably, publications around the world are calling it the most expensive wine ever sold. Which it is, unless you adjust for inflation.

When adjusting for inflation, the most expensive wine ever sold was purchased in December 1985 by Malcolm Forbes. It was believed to have been a bottle owned by Thomas Jefferson, and sold for $157,500, the equivalent of around $355,663 today. It was later revealed that the bottle was a fake peddled by fraudulent wine dealer Hardy Rodenstock.