Sour Grapes

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And the stock down on Wall Street today

as both the DOW and the S&P 500

closed at all-time highs.

If I told you that you could turn your

love of wine into an investment return...

We've seen prices go up

higher than they've ever been.

...could you forget gold

and invest in vino?

And the bottom line is, if you want

to own a fine or real wine collection,

the time to buy is right now.

Did you sell 1961 Chteau La Fleur?

I can taste the Chardonnay on the palate.

Did you sell one or more

1961 Chteau La Fleur magnums?

I thought it was a little forward.

Who inspected these bottles?

I've got elderflower, perfumed, juicy...

Bright and leafy.

This is the whole

"power of suggestion" thing, right?

Did you have any reason to suspect

that the wine was counterfeit?

Wine is alive.

It's not a beverage.

It's not a tool.

It's not a table or a plate or a car.

It's alive.

You can see how the branches of the vines

are all twisting, tortuous.

It's very traditional.

It's an ancient pruning process,

hardly ever used any more.

We call it 'cup pruning'.

Over time, the branches have grown

and now they look like statues.

It's phantasmagoric,

especially now, in the fog.

But it's also a part of our history.

I am Laurent Ponsot.

Winemaker, vigneron, in Burgundy.

I was born above a cellar in this village

in Morey-Saint-Denis,

in a family that is owning

this winery since 1872.

You feel here what I call

"the spirit of the vines."

As soon as I started to breathe,

I had the smell of wine.

And I can say that I had some blood

in my wine, not wine in my blood.

The spirit of Burgundy wines is unique,

with the name on the label

representing not only a wine,

but a culture and history.

What people are seeing, feeling,

behind the wine has no price.

At 1,600, $1,600, order bidder 1053.

Lot 982, Romane-Conti. '72.

Two bottles, wow.

9,500, 10,000.

$10,000 bid now for these at 10,000.

At $10,000, give me 11,000.

At 10,000.

$10,000 now, for 10,000.

11,000 these now for 11,000.

Give me 12,000.

11,000.

$11,000 I have now at 11,000,

it's in the orders.

Boom for 1019.

I guess the auction scene really

started in the 90's, in the dot-com boom.

Everybody was making money.

There developed this culture

of very wealthy collectors

gathering at these auctions

to see and be seen.

To be seen bidding.

The prices started to really escalate.

5,500 go 6,000, 5,500 last call.

At 5,500.

Pass then at 5,500.

1987...

I started to get these emails.

It was strange, I couldn't really

figure out where they were coming from.

They described these evenings

where these guys, very wealthy collectors,

were drinking like 1945 Romane-Conti,

and 1955 Petrus.

You know really, really expensive wine.

I eventually learned that these emails

were coming from John Kapon,

the head of the auction house

Acker Merrall & Condit.

OWC, 12 bottles of 1990 Romane-Conti.

They do not make 12 bottle OWCs any more.

I think this in fact was

the last vintage in this...

Kapon's notes were very colourful.

He had these unusual descriptors.

Trying to make the whole

tasting note more interesting

and developing new metaphors.

This culture kind of reached its apogee

under the auspices

of Acker Merrall & Condit

and this group called the Angry Men,

all of whom had nicknames

like Mr Angry and Big Boy

and Hollywood Jef.

We missed the tequila party last night.

But, you know...

-I think it was worth it.

-It was worth it, yeah.

I drank a lot of that

1907 Madeira last night.

-It was...

-It had a lot of layers, that wine.

Yeah, I mean, it was it was coconut,

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