Text and Photo by Wine Spectator July 31,2009
Michel Chasseuil currently has the pick of some 25,000 bottles of fine wine and 3,000 bottles of spirits in his cellar. Yet his passion for collecting is such that he could never bring himself to open single one.
The son of postman, Chasseuil, 67, was born in the tiny village of La Chapelle-Bâton in the Poitou-Charentes region of west France. After a stint in the military, he moved to Paris to work for Dassault Aviation. His interest in wine grew form doing sales pitches for military jet fighters. "The best way to get clients to sign a deal was to take them to nightclubs like the Crazy Horse on the Champs-Élysées, where we'd order some very expensive bottles," he recalls.
Chasseuil, who had collected stamps, decided to set his sights on collectible wines. His boss, Marcel Dassault, then the owner of St.-Emilion Grand Cru Classé Château Dassault, told him："Invest only in exceptional wines and forget about the rest-they'll always be available."
Spending his salary at wine auctions and vineyards, at first in France and later throughout Europe and the United Kingdom, Chasseuil built up his modest collection. Established when he was 20, the collection grew from 1,000 bottles in 1970, to 5,000 bottles by 1980, to 15,000 by 1990, to where it stands now. In 1992, he added a significant number of wines to his cellar when he allocated his ﹩100,000 retirement bonus to buying rare bottles.
When possible, Chasseuil tried to acquire two cases of wine, one for a permanent collection to leave to his family and one to drink. However, the skyrocketing prices of top wines during the past decade provided an incentive to sell off his second cases, often translating into highly lucrative dividends. He sold a case of 1982 Pétrus, which initially cost him ﹩460, for ﹩50,000 to an American collector who flew to Bordeaux in his private jet to pick up the wine. But each time, Chasseuil spent the money gained on acquiring more wine.
Now retired, he lives in his grandmother's former house in his hometown. Chasseuil, with a true collector's mentality, has never opened a bottle from his vast reserves. He is far from a teetotaler, though, and prides himself on drinking four glasses of red wine a day. "I prefer Madiran-based wines, recognized for their health attributes, or ones from my own estate, Pomerol Château Feytit-Clinet, made by my son Jérémy," he says. (Chasseuil acquired half of the estate in 1985, and his son bought the other half in 1997.)
To protect his collection from theft, Chasseuil designed a vast, high-security cellar adjacent to his home in 2000. Three reinforced doors with security access codes and radar protect the bunkerlike cellar. A flock of geese guard the outside of the house. Situated 6 meters underground, the cellar offers a stable, cool temperature and adequate ventilation, with narrow passageways limited to the transportation of one case at a time to slow down an attempted burglary.
For decades he had kept quiet about is celler for fear of theft. But advancing age has prompted him to come forward, paradoxically, in order to preserve it.
"These bottles are historic artifacts that should be preserved for posterity rather than being sold off to millionaires and lost forever," he explains. One idea he's been toying with in keeping them together to start wine conservatory in St.-Emilion. "What better place for a wine conservatory than St.-Emilion, already recognized as a World Heritage site by UNESCO." - Diana Macle
格主碎碎唸 ：如此看來，蒐集葡萄酒，不論是為傳世抑或投資，只要是買對標的，漲幅倍增甚或十倍也不無可能，但前題一定要是相當卓越不凡乃至量少的精品；儲存的環境更是珍藏稀釀的重要因子，但要成為世紀好酒必需符合五大要素：1.開花期早2.六月初結果、伴隨炙熱、陽光普照且較乾燥的氣候3.果實變色早，七月底即開始4.受益於炎熱氣候與八九月多變的降雨，果實得以完全成熟5.最後是九月底與十月出現特別乾燥的氣候。
好的酒如同藝術品一般，如果能讓它好好傳承下去，絕不會遜色於聯合國教科文組織想盡力保護的世界遺產，當然囉！如果能在它臻於完美的顛峰時期享用，那更是世間無與倫比的幸福。
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