1884 wine bottle - Bouchard Peré & Fils

Scoopasaurus

I have a very dark green wine bottle from 1884. It appears to be hand-blown and it still has the label and the top foil. I know Bouchard is one of the oldest wineries in Bordeaux, but that's all I know. Can anyone help me with the bottle, its makeup and maybe it's value, if any? Thanks in advance. I rotated the pics in iPhoto, but they came in sideways. My apologies.

Chris

Thanks for posting this! I could go on at great length about wine :-)

First, the photo rotation is happening on this site so it is definitely not your fault. When I get some time, I need to look into why this works incorrectly SOME of the time.

Back to wine.

There are three ways to look at this bottle:

(1) From the (empty) bottle collector's perspective. In this case it would have fairly limited appeal. Some but not much in my opinion.

(2) From the perspective of the wine enthusiast. Think decorative accessory for those who value vintage artifacts to go with their wine cellar.

and

(3) From the perspective of the forger who wants to create a new old bottle of wine and sell it for a lot of money. This one is the most fun.

I got interested in this topic after reading the intriguing book, Billionaire's Vinegar which recounts a number of stories of allegedly antique wines which have sold for enormous amounts of money. There has been plenty of press on this topic in recent years, plenty of rumors, the occasional crook caught and perhaps plenty of questionable (full) bottles on the market.

I am not sure what a full 1884 bottle from Bouchard might fetch, but if enough it could just run the value of this empty bottle up quite a bit!

Chris

Let me ponder value for awhile and I will get back to you.