A man bought a $250 bottle of wine in the 1970s and then forgot about it in his basement. It sold at

• A California man sold a rare bottle of wine he'd been keeping in his basement.
• Mark Paulson said he bought the bottle for $250 in the 1970s, but left it unopened for decades.
• The auction house handling the sale reported the bottle sold for over $100,000.

A California man just made over $100,000 thanks to a bottle of wine he bought in the 1970s and never opened.

According to a report by The Washington Post, Mark Paulson bought a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche in the 1970s and left it alone, unopened, inside a cardboard box in his basement for decades. Paulson initially purchased the 1971 bottle for $250 — the equivalent of $1,889 today when adjusted for inflation. 

"It's just been sitting downstairs in my basement for all these years," he told The Post. "Never really thought that much about it."

In March, it was reported that the bottle was headed to auction, where it was expected to fetch between about $50,000 and $80,000, according to the auction house Bonhams Skinner. It ended up selling for $106,250.

The 3-liter bottle is exceptionally rare

When he purchased it, Paulson was working as a commercial painter. However, he had a niche interest in rare, high-end wines.

Roger Brandt, a wine proprietor friend who Paulson met through a San Francisco-based wine-tasting group in the late 70s, convinced Paulson to purchase the bottle of La Tâche because it was a "once-in-a-lifetime thing," according to The Washington Post.

The bottle is a Jeroboam, also known as a double magnum, which is the equivalent of four standard bottles of wine. According to Bonhams Skinner, roughly 1,300 cases of La Tâche are produced annually, with the vast majority being standard 750 ml bottles. Very few 3-liter bottles were made, and the quality of the wine itself is considered exceptional.

Despite its reputation, Paulson never found the right occasion to open it — now he never will

After doing some research, Paulson's son found an article about Bonhams Skinner selling a similar bottle of 1971 La Tâche for $81,250 in October 2022.

"We were shocked. We were just, you know, flabbergasted, couldn't say anything. We just kind of hugged each other and smiled a lot," Paulson told The Washington Post.

Bonhams Skinner handled the sale of Paulson's bottle of La Tâche.

"We see amazing bottles every day, but this one, combined with the story of how Mark got it, and how important it's been to his life, was one that I'll never forget," Louis Krieger, the deputy director of fine wines at Bonhams Skinner, said in a statement shared with Insider in April.

The auction house estimated the bottle of wine could sell for between about $50,000 and $80,000 when it went to auction between April 16 and 26, though Paulson hoped the final sale could reach $100,000. The sale ended up exceeding Paulson's expectations and the bottle sold for $106,250.

Other bottles in Paulson's collection also fetched more than twice their estimated value at auction. 

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