Dan Aykroyd’s teenage daughter threw a Margaux party

Ghostbusters actor Dan Aykroyd has relived the moment that his teenage daughter threw a party where she and others drank an entire crate of US$900-per-bottle Château Margaux.

In an exclusive with People, Aykroyd made the comments on an upcoming episode of “A History of the World in Six Glasses”, which is a six-part US docuseries.

According to Aykroyd, his eldest daughter Danielle Aykroyd, known professionally as singer-songwriter Vera Sola, invited her friends around to their house and apparently got through an entire case of Château Margaux as a teenager.

He said that despite each bottle being estimated at around $900, he told Jim Belushi and Kevin Nealon that Vera’s “little party” got through a whole case of the fine wine.

Belushi responded to Aykroyd’s story by saying “that is such a beautiful wine” before Aykroyd responded that he still mentioned the incident to his daughter today.

He said: “I still mention it every time I have the chance — it’s called good parenting.”

Aykroyd is also something of a drinks entrepreneur, having founded Crystal Head Vodka with artist John Alexander in 2007, which sees the liquid contained in a distinctive skull-shaped bottle and filtered through Herkimer diamond crystals.

Vintage

As our Bordeaux correspondent Colin Hay notes, Margaux is the largest appellation in the Médoc, by both surface area and by the number of separate properties. It has suffered difficulties recently due to the shift in climate conditions and the variable weather in French vineyards across the previous few vintages.

Speaking about its 2022 vintage though, Hay said the results were impressive, all the more so when the difficulties of the vintage are taken into account.

He commented:”It was with some surprise and delight that the first wines that I tasted from the appellation largely confounded my expectations … and with growing amazement as my expectations were recalibrated with almost every subsequent property I visited and every little group of wines that I tasted.”

Last October, Alexis Leven-Mentzelopoulos took over the Château as his mother Corinne Mentzelopoulos, who has headed up the holding company of the chateau for 43 years, retired.  Leven-Mentzelopoulos, the third generation of the family, joined the family estate in 2020 as business development director, but for the last two years he has served as deputy general manager in charge of strategy and development.

He will be supported in his new role by managing director Philippe Bascaule, along with a team of professionals dedicated to serving Château Margaux.