Collector charging €10,000 for wine tasting

One of the world’s leading wine collectors, Michel-Jack Chasseuil, is offering wine lovers the chance to taste a selection of his wines for €10,000 a ticket.

The 73-year-old boasts one of the largest and finest wine and spirit collections in the world at his home in Deux-Sèvres in western France, which has an estimated value of €50m.

Featuring over 40,000 bottles, among the fine wines in his collection are vatious vintages of Château d’Yquem, Lafite, Pétrus and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

Also resting in his cellar is a bottle of Champagne from 1805 that once belonged to Napoleon; an 1893 Frapin Cognac; an 1811 Bisquit Cognac engraved with an effigy of Napoleon; and a bottle of Rémy Martin Louis XIII dating back to 1900.

In December, Chasseuil is offering ten lucky tasters the chance to try eight of his wines, but they’ll have to fork out €10,000 each for the privilege.

He is to host the tasting, which he’s dubbed “the best wine tasting ever”, over dinner at a hotel in Japan, though the final wine line-up has yet to be decided.

After failing to get backing from France’s ministry of culture, Chasseuil plans to put the money from the tasting towards building a museum to house his collection in France, which he claims will be the “Louvre of wine”.

While keen to keep the collection in France, Chasseuil has been offered large sums for his liquid treasures by Chinese and Russian investors keen to snap up the wines.

Last June, Chasseuil was held hostage at his home by masked men armed with Kalashnikovs who later fled without breaking into his cellar.

He suffered a broken finger in the attack, but after two hours his assailants fled after they were unable to break into the cellar’s armoured doors.