Chateau le how much! Bottle of wine that’ll cost you £120,000
WHEN one of the world’s wealthiest families opens a restaurant, it’s perhaps not surprising that the prices might seem steep.
Yet the £65 price tag for a prime cut of steak at the new Grill restaurant in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, pales into insignificance once the wine list is opened.
For the high-end eaterie owned by Mohsin Al-Tajir – part of the Highland Spring dynasty – boasts Scotland’s most expensive wine.
Diners will have to pay £120,000 to pop the cork on the 1989 La Tache.
The extremely rare French pinot noir comes in a three-litre jeroboam (the equivalent of four standard 75cl bottles) which means the price works out at £5,000 per small glass.
It is so valuable that the buyer will have to give 24 hours’ notice of their arrival so the wine can be transported from the secret cellar where it is kept under tight security.
The Grill, which opened last month, is the latest venture of AlTajir, 51, a member of the Emirati billionaire family that owns the mineral water brand.
The restaurant serves premium wagyu steaks produced from cattle he and his wife Martine farm on land near the town. The steers are allowed to roam free, are fed seabottle weed and Himalayan pink salt, and classical music by Tchaikovsky is piped into their living quarters to guarantee the sort of stress-free, healthy existence that produces tender meat.
Top chefs including Tom Kitchin and Albert Roux, who has a restaurant at Sir Andy Murray’s Cromlix House Hotel in nearby Dunblane, are fans of the wagyu beef.
Grill restaurateur Christopher Peck, who was formerly a manager at Gleneagles, said: ‘We are trying to create something unique by having a menu of locally produced wagyu beef and fish from Scottish waters in a beautiful setting with the best wines on the planet.
‘We are looking for local trade as well as international visitors. Nobody is under pressure to spend lots of money and everybody’s taste is catered for.
‘The La Tache is the wine people have been talking about since we opened and it will be somebody’s bucket list moment to order it.’
Mr Peck added: ‘I know from my time at Gleneagles there are people out there who will happily order such a thing– and why shouldn’t they?
‘It’s a truly rare and magical wine; 1989 was a stunning year.
‘We’ve not come across another of this vintage anywhere that is available on a wine list.’
A sausage-and-mash lunch at The Grill costs £14, while a three-course ‘full wagyu’ Sunday roast is £40.
While a glass of prosecco is only £7, the wine list includes some remarkable ‘museum bottles’, all from Mr Al-Tajir’s private collection, which is stored in cool conditions in a cellar at an undisclosed location away from the restaurant.
Besides La Tache – which means ‘task’ in French – a bottle of Romanée St Vivant costs £70,000 and the 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild is priced at £39,000.
The most expensive champagne on the list is a bottle of Dom Perignon rosé, which sells for £4,500.
The world-renowned winery Domaine de la Romanée-Conti has been producing La Tache since 1936 with grapes grown at the same organically-farmed vineyard near the village of Vosne-Romanée in the Burgundy region of eastern France. Last year, a 1999 methuselah – the equivalent of eight standard wine bottles – sold at a Hong Kong auction for £67,200.
Mr Al-Tajir’s father, Mahdi, is a former UAE ambassador to the UK, and is among the richest people in Scotland, with a personal wealth of around £1.72 billion.