A Bottle of Wine That Sold for $18,000 May Be Undrinkable

May 29, 2015 3:14 PM EDT

A bottle of wine sold at a London auction for $18,000 on Thursday. The problem is it might taste pretty bad.

The Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1945, one of the rarest wines in the world, was sold by auctioneer Bonhams to a private collection in Europe, Bloomberg reported. Individual glasses of the French red wine would sell for $1,500, the news service said.

The bottle sold for less than it could have, however, because of concerns that it may be undrinkable, Richard Harvey, Bonhams’ global head of wine, told Bloomberg. The wine, from the Medoc region, is believed to have oxidized because of some space found between the wine and the bottom of the cork. According to the article:

Had it been in better condition, the 70-year-old bottle, part of a vintage described by critic Michael Broadbent as the “Churchill of wine,” could have fetched twice the 10,000-pound ($15,000) to 15,000-pound range Bonhams had estimated in its sale catalog.

But regardless of its taste, the wine is a collector’s item because of its historical significance. A “V” printed on the label is said to celebrate the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

Nobody Knows If This $18,000 Wine Is Any Good

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