Celebrating a bonus or the sale of your business: the bottle, the dinner, the cellar

Three purchases, three budgets

Indicative ranges incl. VAT, confirmed on the quote.

The bottle from the founding year

For a business sale, the bottle that tells a story is the one from the year the company was born. In Bordeaux, many years lend themselves to it: 1989, 1990, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2019. The oldest are for drinking now; the more recent can still wait, which makes a fine gift to yourself. The birth year vintage page says what each year is still worth.

Was the company born in a weak year? Take the year of the first client, of the first profitable financial year, or a great recent vintage. The vintage of the signing year, for its part, is not yet in bottle: you will have to wait two years.

For a bonus, the question is simpler: a bottle you would not have bought the rest of the year. A magnum is good for sharing with partners: two bottles, a single cork to pull, and a wine that ages better. See magnum, jeroboam, imperial.

The closing dinner

• Allow one bottle for every two to three guests at a seated dinner, plus one bottle of champagne for six at the aperitif. The calculator adjusts to your number of guests and the length.
• One wine for the table, a great one for the toast. A good wine served to everyone and one or two great bottles opened for the speech cost less than a great wine for the whole dinner, and make more of an impression.
• At a restaurant, ask about corkage before bringing your own bottles: many accept it for a private room, and charge it per bottle.
• If the company pays, the invoice is in its name; what is deductible and what isn't is explained on the VAT on wine, gifts and receptions page.

Thank-you gifts

The lawyer, the investment banker, the accountant, the first employees: the same bottle for everyone in the same circle avoids comparisons, and a handwritten card counts as much as the label. Name the year (“the vintage we were founded”): that is what people remember. The bottles are delivered in a single shipment, to the office or to your home.

The first cellar, with the money

A sum that arrives all at once makes you want to buy nothing but great wine. Better a cellar on three levels: wines ready to drink, wines for three to five years' time, and a few wines for laying down. With €5,000, that is about two hundred bottles at €25 on average. The build your cellar tool does the split case by case; for a cellar of several hundred places, see having your cellar filled.

A cellar is not an investment: it gets drunk, or passed on. If it is a return you are after, read investing in wine first. If your wealth adviser wants to introduce us, their page is here.