The 2000 vintage price peaked at Sotheby's Hong Kong auction last October, when three cases sold for $28,000 each. Liv-ex's data on merchant prices in Europe lists the 2000 vintage at a more modest $15,300 a case, while among other recent standout years 2005 sells in Europe for $13,000 and 2009 for $13,900.

Among the five Left Bank, first-growth Bordeaux wines, Margaux typically trades for less than market leader Chateau Lafite Rothschild and its Pauillac neighbor Chateau Latour, while usually fetching more than Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Pessac-Leognan producer Chateau Haut-Brion.

Upstart Rival
Chateau Margaux is also under siege from one of its neighbors, Chateau Palmer, a third-growth claret popular with U.K. collectors that displays regional similarities to its more illustrious rival and sells for a quarter of the price. Palmer 1990 is listed at $2,800 a case by European merchants, according to Liv-ex, while its 2000 vintage sells for $3,500.

"We fill some 120,000 bottles a year, around 10,000 cases of Chateau Margaux," Mentzelopoulos says of the bewildering market clout of investment-grade Bordeaux. "I've no idea how many of the people who buy prefer speculating over drinking, but I do worry about a Bordeaux slump that never seems to happen. Hey, if the grape is rotten, the grape is rotten. I make wine for drinkers."

Oil Or Wine
International Monetary Fund economists Serhan Cevik and Tahsin Saadi Sedik say investors might just as well be drinking Brent Blend.

"Although fine wine can be considered as an investable asset," the economists wrote in their January research paper "A Barrel of Oil or a Bottle of Wine: How do Global Growth Dynamics Affect Commodity Prices?" "its behavior is not significantly different than other commodities and therefore may fail to enhance portfolio diversification."

Mentzelopoulos ponders the notion in the IMF working paper of Chateau Margaux as a hydrocarbon.

"At least they didn't compare us to gold," she says. "If gold drops in price, there's nothing you can do with it. Chateau Margaux is an asset that fortunately happens to be a drinkable commodity that improves with age."

It has been that way since June 1705, when the London Gazette newspaper ran an advertisement with a typographical error that offered 230 hogshead barrels of Chateau "Margoose" for 60 pounds a "tun" at a time when the most precious Bordeaux fetched 18 pounds a tun. Chateau Margaux 66 years later again entered the history books by becoming the first wine put on auction by Christie's.

Drinking Paradise
A passage from William Styron's 1979 best seller Sophie's Choice boosted the wine's literary reputation. "Were a wine to be drunk in paradise," Styron wrote, "it would be Chateau Margaux."