The £100,000 Sangria! Outrage as diners dump dozens of bottles of vintage £3,200 Petrus into a bowl to make an outrageously expensive punch at a French Riviera restaurant
- The Petrus vintages were used to make a £100,000 sangria
- The wine was once loved by Queen Elizabeth and the Kennedys
- Do you know these people? Email perkin.amalaraj@mailonline.co.uk
Wine experts have been outraged by a video showing revellers carelessly pouring dozens of bottles of vintage Petrus wine into a glass bowl to make a £100,000 sangria.
Video footage shows diners at La Guérite restaurant on Sainte-Marguerite Island, off the coast of Cannes, cheering and whistling as they mix two vintages of the world-famous Petrus with ice cubes, oranges and other ingredients.
A man was seen licking a bottle as he poured the contents into the bowl.
The as-yet-unnamed revellers were seen pouring the vintages, a 2006 which costs around €3,800 (£3,200) a bottle, and the 2011, which costs around €3,200 (£2,700), in August. But it wasn’t until French newspaper La Figaro picked up the story that condemnation became widespread.
Philippe Faure-Brac, a renowned sommelier, told The Times it was ‘like using a Picasso or a van Gogh to light a fire’
Video footage showed diners at the La Guérite restaurant on Sainte-Marguerite Island, off the coast of Cannes, cheering and whistling as they mixed two vintages of the world-famous Petrus in a glass bowl
The vintages, a 2006 which costs around €3,800 (£3,200) a bottle, and the 2011, which costs around €3,200 (£2,700), were used to make the brew
“This is a wine with a gastronomic vocation par excellence. Why not taste it in a very festive way? Putting it in a sangria is not its vocation.”
Petrus became a favourite of the then Princess Elizabeth in the 1940s after Marie-Louise Loubat, the then owner, sent a coffin to the UK.
She loved the red wine and later invited Loubat to serve it at her wedding.
The wine was also given to John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie, both well-known Francophiles. They declared their love for the wine, which greatly increased its popularity in the US.
The vineyard produces only 30,000 bottles of Petrus per year on 10 hectares of land.
Legendary wine critic Robert Parker previously said of the 2006 Petrus that it had “notes of caramelized, sweet black cherry and wild berry fruit with lots of spice, earth and a hint of herbaceousness.”
He said the 2011 vintage had “subdued but intriguing aromas of kirsch, raspberry jam, woody spice and mulberry.”