Czech castle's cache of precious wine goes on display in new-old bottles

Chateau d’Yquem has recorked several bottles, but El Khawand said the restoration had been scrupulously authentic down ​to preserving the dust on the bottles. The wine will be on display at Becov castle, once ⁠the home of the Beaufort-Spontin family.

A collection of late ​19th-century wine that for years was hidden away ​under a chapel floor in ‌the Czech ​Republic's Becov castle has been painstakingly restored by prestigious French winery Château d’Yquem and is on public display. The 133 bottles, most dating from ‌1892 to 1899, were discovered in 1985 where they had been hidden at the end of World War Two by the then owners of Becov castle, close to the border with Germany.

Toni El Khawand, Chateau d’Yquem ‌Cellar Master, said the cache had provided perfect conditions for keeping the wine. Its quality was ‌proven when it was tested in 2016 using the Coravin device that extracts a sample through a needle, piercing the cork without damaging it.

"It benefited from very good conditions of conservation, in this old chapel, I think very humid and very ⁠cold, ​with thick walls, and also ⁠underground so it preserved the moisture and temperature in a very constant way. Those were excellent conditions to store a wine," ⁠he said. Chateau d’Yquem has recorked several bottles, but El Khawand said the restoration had been scrupulously authentic down ​to preserving the dust on the bottles.

The wine will be on display at Becov castle, once ⁠the home of the Beaufort-Spontin family. The family was labelled Nazi sympathisers and the castle was taken over by then-Czechoslovakia. The Beaufort-Spontins hid ⁠their ​wine alongside a reliquary of St. Maurus, which is said to hold the bones of St John the Baptist, and fled to Austria.

In 1984, the family approached an American businessman, Danny Douglas, ⁠to help get the hidden treasure back, and he applied secretly on their behalf to retrieve an ⁠unknown object from an unknown ⁠location. After a back-and-forth with authorities over permitting, police eventually realised where Douglas was looking and what treasure he was seeking, leading to the collection's discovery.