New World Record: Bottle of Wine From 1811 Sold for $117,000

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Ben Stansall / AFP / Getty Images

Christian Vanneque holds his prized bottle of 1811 Chateau d’Yquem.

A 200-year-old vintage from Bordeaux set a new world record when it was sold on Tuesday for $117,000, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The 1811 Chateau d’Yquem, once likened to “liquefied crème brûlée” by American wine critic Robert Parker, is now the most valuable bottle of white wine in the world. The wine that was previously the priciest came from the same Bordeaux chateau: a bottle of 1787 Chateau d’Yquem, sold for $100,000 in 2006.

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The buyer, French private collector Christian Vanneque, unveiled his hefty purchase at a press conference in London on Tuesday. The prized variety was sold in Britain by Steven Williams, who bought the bottle himself in 2007 after purchasing the entire cellar of a European collector.

Vanneque runs a wine bar in Indonesia, where he will house the record-breaking bottle in a temperature- and humidity-controlled case. “It will be featured and displayed in a bulletproof showcase, like a painting, so people can see it easily,” Vanneque said. “It’ll be a mini-Fort Knox, impossible to open.”

The former sommelier for La Tour d’Argent in Paris says he will not sell the bottle. “Wine is for drinking,” he says, which is exactly what he plans to do with his new purchase in six years to commemorate his half-century career as a sommelier.

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Kai Ma is a TIME contributor. Find her on Twitter at @Kai_Ma or on Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.