Is it, or isn’t it, an 1870’s Chateau Latour? The bottle is one of 12 salvaged from a shipwreck of the Liverpool liner SS Dakota, which sank 121 years ago. While the labels have long since vanished, the ship’s manifest lists 120 bottles of Domaine de la Tour. But wine consultant Peter Hopkins says there’s no definitive way of knowing if this is one is a Chateau Latour. If a buyer believes it is, the bottle may sell for as much as $24,000 at an auction next week in Cheshire, England. If not, its value is closer to $395.The Dakota foundered on rocks off the English coast on the night of May 9, 1877. Everyone aboard was saved, but the cargo—of which this bottle was a part—was lost. Salvaged in 1998, it comes, according to Hopkins, with “certification from the salvage company and the manifest from the inspector of wrecks.” It will be offered by UK auction house Frank Marshall on March 14th.
Read more at the Liverpool Echo.
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