The lot which will be best remembered from Christie's recent auction of fine wines will be the Romanée Conti 1990. Just four bottles of the great and rare wine were fought over furiously by bidders, and only left the stage for a staggering $78,000.

But that was not the only spectacular sale in the auction.

Château Lafite Rothschild is usually regarded as first class, and of course the 1982 vintage is anything but an exception. Renowned wine critic Michael Broadbent describes the 1982 as follows:

"Most recently still impressively deep and comparatively youthful; a well developed, sweet and harmonious bouquet. Mouthfilling, so much on show, so much left to show. Another effortless 20 years."

... so a dozen bottles of it were expected to sell for anything between $26,000-35,000.

Interested parties, however, thought that even this was an underestimate, and a brief bidding battle saw the final price buffeted up to $45,600. No doubt the fact that the wine was still in its original wooden cases (suggesting it had been looked after) helped.

The sale just goes to show what an excellent investment collectible wine proved to be for the collector who sold it.