A simple bottle of wine, forgotten by a former commercial painter and left unopened in the basement of his home, has sold at auction for just over $106,000. The bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche was purchased by Mark Paulson back in the 1970s. He often collected rare wines and had a passion for them, paying $250 for the bottle at the time. Paulson, who lives in California, put the wine away and never opened it for a special occasion or just to drink it.

He wasn’t specifically saving it to appreciate in value, but it was truly a rare find. It’s a double magnum (also called a Jeroboam) and there are only a few of these produced every year. Convinced to buy the bottle by his friend, who was a wine proprietor, he simply held onto it all these years. Several months back, though, Paulson’s son discovered that a bottle similar to the one his father owned had sold for more than $80,000 in October 2022.

Surprised by that discovery, and wanting to see if they could have similar success, they listed the bottle for sale through Bonhams Skinner. Both father and son were amazed when the bottle sold quickly for $106,250. That was an impressive level of profit for an investment that was essentially forgotten in the basement for decades.

It remains to be seen if Paulson has any other impressively expensive bottles of wine lying around, or whether he’ll decide to sell them if he does. It’s possible that the one bottle was the main investment he made in rare wines, or that other bottles he may have purchased have already been sold. When adjusted for inflation, the $250 Paulson paid for the wine in the 1970s would be approximately $1,889 today.

When asked about the sale by reporters, he indicated that it had literally just been sitting in a box in his basement all this time, and he hadn’t given it much thought. The estimate at the auction house when the bottle went up for sale was between $50,000 and $80,000, so it exceeded the house’s expectations and Paulson’s, as well.

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