Outcry as diners use classic Petrus to make £100,000 bowl of sangria
- The Petrus vintages were used to make a £100,000 sangria
- The wine was once loved by Queen Elizabeth and the Kennedys
- French wine connoisseurs were up in arms over their use
Wine connoisseurs are up in arms over a video showing revellers carelessly pouring dozens of bottles of vintage Petrus wine into a glass bowl to make a £100,000 sangria.
Video footage showed patrons of the La Guérite restaurant on Sainte-Marguerite island, off Cannes, cheering and whistling as they mixed two vintages of world-renowned Petrus along with ice cubes, oranges and other ingredients.
One man was seen licking one bottle as he poured its contents out into the bowl.
The as-yet-unnamed partygoers were seen pouring the vintages, a 2006 that costs around €3,800 (£3,200) a bottle, and the 2011, which costs about €3,200 (£2,700), back in August. But it wasn’t until French newspaper La Figaro picked the story up that condemnation became widespread.
Philippe Faure-Brac, a renowned sommelier, told The Times it was ‘like using a Picasso or a van Gogh to make a fire’
Video footage showed patrons of the La Guérite restaurant on Sainte-Marguerite island, off Cannes, cheering and whistling as they mixed two vintages of world-renowned Petrus into a glass bowl
The vintages, a 2006 that costs around €3,800 (£3,200) a bottle, and the 2011, which costs about €3,200 (£2,700), were used to make the concoction
‘This is a wine with a gastronomic vocation par excellence. Why not taste it in a very festive way? Putting it in a sangria is not its vocation.’
Petrus became a favourite of the then-Princess Elizabeth in the 1940s, after Marie-Louise Loubat, its owner at the time, sent a case over to the UK.
She was enamoured by the red wine, and later invited Loubat to serve it at her wedding.
The wine was also served to John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie, both known Francophiles who declared their love for the wine which massively boosted its popularity in the US.
The vineyard makes just 30,000 bottles of Petrus a year on its 10 hectares of land.
Legendary wine critic Robert Parker previously said of the 2006 Petrus that it had ‘notes of caramelized, sweet black cherries and wild berry fruit with plenty of spice, earth, and a hint of herbaceousness.’
He said the 2011 vintage had ‘restrained but intriguing aromas of kirsch, raspberry jam, wood spice, and mulberries.’
