Chateau Haut Brion 1985

That image is Ch. Haut Brion, and it is an expensive wine. 1985 is a nice vintage. Quarterly winebid (a US auction site) average price for a 750 is $368. Before you get too excited, you should read the FAQ of this group

). which will inform you:

1) your main problem is "found in the attic," I don't know where you are, but attics are pretty much the last place one wants to store wines. Without verifiable storage history value is severely degraded. 2) related to number 1, what is bottle condition? How far from cork is wine level? What is color like? Is the cork flat with top of bottle? Any signs of seepage (stains or stickiness) 3) there are costs involved with selling. Plus Winebid or any auction house won't deal with a single bottle.

Selling as an individual with no track record on winecommune.com, IF the bottle is in good condition and ullage is ok, you'd probably get $200-250.

As to grapes, HB is a Bordeaux from the Pessac-Leognan (Graves) region, and uses 3 of the permitted grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc.

I would guess that there is less than a 5% chance that the wine is still drinkable if in fact the bottle was stored in an attic for 24 years. I'm not sure where you are geographically but most attics aren't heated or cooled and the temperature extremes in a northern climate could freeze the wine in the winter and cook it in the summer. In a hot climate it would certainly be cooked to death in a very short time. If by the grace of the wine gods the bottle is still in pristine condition you have a wonderful bottle of Bordeaux that should smell like cedar, tobacco and leather with a hint of barnyard......and that's the way it's supposed to smell.

It only takes a few minutes in temps above 80F to "cook" the wine and it's entirely possible for the temp to get to 90F in Ireland. Optimal storage temps are around 55F and under optimal stroage the wine would now be showing a bit of age. If you sell it just make sure to be honest about the storage conditions.

I didn't mean to mislead but 24 years in storage over 55F would have a poor effect on the wine as would a short amount of time at very high or low temps. Studies have shown that wine deteriorates quickly at high temps like in the truck of your car for an hour or so in the summer or in a non climate controlled shipping dock. Certainly I didn't mean to imply that the wine would be destroyed in minutes at

80F but it will certainly degrade within hours at 90F. My point really was that heated wine goes bad very quickly, perhaps in minutes at high temps.

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In any case there is a very high probability that even in Ireland it was ruined, or too ruined to sell in any case. There are hot spells in the 70s F even there, and in an attic, especially under slate or tile, it was likely to have gotten toasty indeed.

-E

I don't mean to say that all this is wrong, but how does one explain some cases when storing wine in bad environments results in good results? Case in point - the best wine I've ever had, had been stored probably for 8 years in a cupboard on a balcony. It was a 1996 Mavrud, and I had it in 2005; the location was Sofia, Bulgaria, where temperatures in summer can reach 35C (sometimes 40) in the summer (well in excess of 90F), and below freezing in winter. True, it is a north-facing balcony, so no direct sunlight, and it was obviously never gotten too cold in the winter to freeze it, but you get the idea. The wine was absolutely fantastic - bone-dry: I subconsciously expected to see chalk powder floating on the surface, and incredibly smooth, as if drinking liquid silk. Not even a hint at annoying sweetness, mild perfect acidity, subtle leather notes. I was going "aahh.." in rapture after every sip. What do you think happened to make this wine that way?