„Chateau d’Yquem“ – one of the most expensive and highly valued sweet white wines in the world – bottles are part of a collection of 136 bottles discovered in the Bečov nad Teplou castle in western Czech Republic in the 1980s.
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The collection once belonged to the noble Beaufort-Spontin family, who hurriedly left old Czechoslovakia at the end of the war amid suspicions of collaboration with the Nazis.
The wine spent decades hidden under the floorboards of the castle chapel near the reliquary of St. Maurus until it was found by the communist secret police in 1985.
However, although the reliquary was immediately taken to Prague for restoration and returned to Bečov for exhibition in 2002, the wine remained where it was.
Ten years ago it was rediscovered during an inventory and a meticulous rescue operation began.
The wine producer „Chateau d’Yquem“ from the Sauternes region of Bordeaux took the initiative and took care of eight of their wines made in 1892 and 1896.
„We tasted a very small amount to make sure that the aroma, flavor balance, and overall the wine corresponded to a „Chateau d’Yquem“ of that age,“ said the cellar master Toni El Khawandas.
Laboratory tests confirmed that the wine is genuine „Chateau d’Yquem“, so experts were able to replace the corks and put capsules on the original bottles to protect them.
Since the wine gradually reacted with oxygen, the winery had to decant it, so only five full original bottles returned to Bečov.
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Speaking at the presentation of the restored bottles, T. El Khawandas said that tasting the wine, which survived due to its high sugar content, was a „magical experience“.
„What we are really doing by opening it is opening a time capsule. We pull out this cork that separated the liquid from the environment and, in a way, from the flow of time,“ he told the AFP news agency.
„Liquid memory“
„The wine impressed us with its freshness on the palate,“ he said. „It is very, very fresh, with an almost acidic freshness.“
Enjoying the „great complexity of the wine“, T. El Khawandas highlighted aromas of cedar, dried fruits, saffron, cinnamon, and nutmeg, along with „more typical aromas of a „Chateau d’Yquem“ of that age: chocolate, coffee, mocha notes, agarwood aromas“.
Newer vintage „Yquem“ sells for hundreds of dollars per bottle, and the Czech National Heritage Institute estimated the value of the entire collection, if sold at auction, at about 5 million dollars (4.25 million euros).
However, T. El Khawandas declined to provide a financial valuation.
„First of all, it has moral and historical value,“ he said.
„Ultimately, it is a memory – certainly a liquid memory – but it is a memory of all those who came before us, of the work done,“ added T. El Khawandas.
For now, no auction is planned – instead, Bečov intends to exhibit all the collection bottles with wine and cognac, including the 1899 „Pedro Ximenez“ sherry and the 1892 port.
The castle has started a fundraising campaign for a new exhibition.
„If we raise money, we will definitely want to conduct a more detailed analysis of the wines,“ said Bečov collection manager Katerina Nyvltova.
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„And if we can restore the rest, we will definitely do so,“ she told AFP.
