Rare wines, stashed away in castle’s cellar for a century and once considered undrinkable, smash auction records
Rare wines, stashed away in castle’s cellar for a century and once considered undrinkable, smash auction records
Glamis Castle, steeped in centuries of history, is famed as Scotland’s most haunted landmark. It once sheltered Mary, Queen of Scots, and boasts deep ties to the British royal family. The castle also inspired Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” but its most intriguing legacy lies beneath its floors—in the wine cellar, described by experts as an “Aladdin’s cave.” For nearly a century, bottles of Bordeaux wine, long deemed unfit for consumption, were stored in this Scottish stronghold.
The Castle’s Legacy
Located in eastern Scotland, 12 miles from Dundee, Glamis Castle has served as the ancestral home of the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne since 1372. Its cellar, dubbed the “catacombs,” was constructed in 1765 for John, the 9th Earl of Strathmore. Today, the space is used for storage and supplies, yet it once held secrets that would redefine wine history.
The two magnums of Château Lafite Rothschild 1870, now fetching over $306,000, made headlines at Sotheby’s auction on April 17. The first bottle set a new global benchmark for its vintage and size, selling for $106,250. Moments later, the second shattered the record, reaching $200,000 in just four minutes of bidding. Sotheby’s called the event “a landmark single-owner sale,” highlighting over 250 Bordeaux lots spanning two centuries.
A Hidden Treasure
“The wine was so astringent that he did not like it and, when he died… the wine was virtually untouched, and his successors just left it,”
Michael Broadbent, the late Christie’s wine department founder, recounted in an online archive. The 13th Earl of Strathmore had purchased 48 bottles of 1870 Lafite in 1878, but they remained sealed for decades. Discovered almost by chance in the 1970s, these bottles were initially expected to sell for up to $50,000 each before their dramatic reappearance in New York.
Sotheby’s Richard Young emphasized the rarity of the wines’ preservation. “When the cellar was rediscovered and auctioned in 1971, the bottles emerged in remarkably pristine condition—an almost unheard-of survival for wines of this age,” he noted in an email to CNN. The 1870 vintage, predating the phylloxera crisis of the late 19th century, holds unique value. This insect-driven disaster devastated Europe’s vineyards, including Bordeaux, prompting the use of American rootstocks to save the industry.
Queen Elizabeth II’s mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, spent her childhood at Glamis Castle before marrying King George VI. Their daughter, Princess Margaret, was born there. “The princesses spent many happy holidays at Glamis, and we have letters from ‘Lilibet’ to her grandparents thanking them for stays at Glamis,” said Ingrid Thomson, Glamis Castle’s archivist. The cellar’s forgotten treasures, once overlooked, now command extraordinary prices.
