This Sunday, five incredibly rare bottles of Cognac will go up for auction. The youngest vintage in the collection dates back to 1914, while the oldest is from 1777.
The auction will be hosted by the online spirits retailer Whiskey.Auction, according to Food & Wine. All five bottles are from the private collection of Jacques Hardy, who passed in 2005. His family founded their eponymous Cognac maison in 1863 and produced each of the bottles going up for auction.
The 1777 vintage was aged in oak for nearly 100 years before being moved to a demijohn, and then bottled once in 1936, and rebottled in 1967. Sukhinder Singh, a Cognac expert and Whiskey.Auction consultant, called the liquid “one of the finest Cognacs ever bottled.” He also emphasized that it remained “fresh and full of life” because of the “lingering rancio flavor you find in pre-phylloxera cognac.”
There may be fewer than six bottles of this vintage left in the world, but Hardy himself encouraged the lucky winner to drink up. His tasting notes for the bottle insist that, “Despite its importance, in your glass, this Cognac will show its aroma of a smooth bouquet and of the blossoms of vine flowers in June in Charente.”
As for the other bottles, there’s a 1906 that’s billed as Hardy’s all time favorite vintage, and the whole collection is expected to sell for over $137,000. Curious parties can watch the auction live from Jan. 31 to Feb. 9 on Whiskey.Auction.
