My Wine Collection is Bigger Than His
It turns out the author of FERMENTATIONS Wine Blog and a Small Time PR Firm has a larger collection of wine than the President of France. Well, not the current president. And not exactly a LIVING former President. A Dead President….It sounded better the first way I wrote it.
Former French President Francois Mitterand’s wine collection went on the block in Paris the other day. The roughly 200 bottled collection sold for just under $18,000.
You’d think the person who had been president of France for 14 years would have accumulated something larger in the way of a wine collection. Of course it may have been that Mitterand was more than just a collector or trophy hunter as some important people turn out to be. He may have been a drinker and decided to get at his collection while still alive, to which I say…Here Here!!
It turns out that it’s not just the wine collection of the loved and hated Socialist is being auctioned. Much of his property is. But in the wine collection were a few gems, include d’Yquem and an 1865 bottle of cognac…which should be drinking just fine now.
I traveled to France at least twice a year in the 1980s and 1990’s. Mitterand was much like Clinton in this country. I knew people who loved him and despised him. Mitterand went on a public building spree in the 1980s, helping to create some of France’s most famed contemporary architecture including the Arch de La Defence on the outskirts of Paris and the amazing new National Biblioteque.
It should be noted that Mitterand was president of France during some of Bordeaux’s greatest recent vintages in Bordeaux. But I’m not really sure how to parse that information.
Tom, Tom, Tom, You have to remember, the goal is not to die with a great wine collection, but with a meager one – having consumed most of it before going to the Great Winebar in the Sky.
Jack,
Too True! In my case I have to refer to you to this earlir post: http://fermentations.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/06/a_body_to_match.html