Sips & Sites & Bites

Wine lovers and collectors, this is the kind of event that makes the heart race and the corkscrew twitch.

This month, Sotheby’s is set to host Immortal Vintages | 200 Years of Bordeaux, a single-owner auction that reads like a love letter to one of the world’s most legendary wine regions. Taking place live in New York on April 17th, the sale features more than 250 selected lots and is expected to bring in more than $1 million.

What makes this auction especially fascinating is its deeply personal story. The collection was built over decades by a passionate wine lover whose journey began in the 1980s after a memorable vertical tasting of Château Margaux. From there, it became a lifelong pursuit of the finest Bordeaux bottles, sourced from auctions and private cellars with remarkable care.

Rather than an overwhelming catalog, this sale is intentionally tight and beautifully curated … a greatest-hits lineup of Bordeaux’s most iconic châteaux and vintages, stretching across 200 years of winemaking history.

The true stars of the auction, though, are the historic bottles that date back to Bordeaux’s pre-phylloxera era, before the vineyard-devastating pest changed European winemaking forever. Among the crown jewels are an 1865 Château Lafite Rothschild and two magnums of the legendary 1870 Château Lafite Rothschild from Glamis Castle, bottles that come from original ungrafted vines and offer an almost impossible glimpse into a lost era of wine.

For collectors, this is as close as it gets to time travel in a glass.

The sale also features some of Bordeaux’s most celebrated modern classics, including vintages from 1929, 1945, 1947, 1959, 1961, and 1982, with several presented in dramatic large formats like jeroboams and imperials. Highlights include a 1959 Lafite in Imperial, a 1961 Palmer in Double Magnum, and a 1959 Haut-Brion in Jeroboam … the kind of bottles that turn heads before they are ever opened.

Perhaps just as impressive as the lineup is the condition. Much of the collection was acquired in the 1980s and 1990s and has been meticulously stored in a custom-built private cellar in the Northeast, preserving the wines’ color, fill levels, and integrity.

In short, this is not just an auction. It is a rare opportunity to witness two centuries of Bordeaux history gathered in one room.

For anyone who appreciates fine wine, history, or the romance of extraordinary bottles, this Sotheby’s sale promises to be one to watch. You can stream live auctions and place bids in real time, discover the value of a work of art, browse sale catalogues, view original content and more at sothebys.com.