Most Expensive Champagne in the World

Champagne, a sparkling wine named after the Champagne region of France is the costliest wine to produce. To produce champagne there must be two fermentation processes, with the second step trapping carbon dioxide and making the bubbles. In most of Europe, the name “champagne” is legally protected meaning only the most expensive sparkling wine produced in the Champagne region of France can be marketed as champagne. In the United States and other areas, $3 bottles of wine are often labeled champagne.

People often drink Champagne as part of a celebration and when celebrating success many feel the need to show off. The most expensive champagnes are more about image than what is in the bottle.

Cristal Brut 1990 “Methuselah”
US $17,625

This six-liter, gold-labeled bottle of Cristal Brut 1990, dubbed the Methuselah, was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in New York to an undisclosed buyer in 2005. At the time, Cristal was a favorite of the hip-hop crowd.

Dom Perignon White Gold Jeroboam
$40,000

During the same year, a limited edition bottle of Dom Perignon became the most expensive champagne in the world. Sold in three-liter bottles, the Dom Perignon White Gold Jeroboam was sold to commemorate the New Year. Much of its price, however, is surely due to the white gold bottle from which the expensive wine takes its name.

Pernod-Ricard Perrier-Jouet
$50,000

Each of the 100 sets contains twelve bottles of fine, expensive champagne. Marketed only to the ultra-rich, buyers will have the chance personalize their drinking experience by choosing the liqueur used in the champagne—and they’ll have to fly to Eastern France to do so. The sets are being sold to consumers in the United States, Britain, Japan, China, Russia, Switzerland and France. The price even includes a storage nest where the champagne may be allowed to age for up to eight months!

Shipwrecked 1907 Heidsieck
$275,000

These hundred year old bottles of Champagne from the Heidsieck vineyard in Champagne took over eighty years to reach their destination. Shipped to the Russian Imperial family in 1916, a shipwreck off the coast of Finland caused this champagne to be lost at sea until divers discovered over 200 bottles in 1997. Now they’re finally being sold—to wealthy guests at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow, at least. Of course, the wine’s extraordinary tale and incredible age are what makes it the world’s most expensive champagne.