The most expensive champagnes in the world: the 2026 ranking

The most expensive champagne bottle ever paid for, with supporting evidence, is a 30-litre Midas of Armand de Brignac, settled for £120,000 (approximately $190,000) in a London club in June 2011. For a classic 75cl bottle, the record belongs to a Perrier-Jouët 1874, sold for £42,875 at Christie’s in London in December 2021. At a wine merchant, the most expensive bottle we found in stock on 29 September 2026 is a Methuselah of Dom Pérignon Rosé 2000 in a golden box, priced at €39,000 at Millésima. Our ranking only includes documented transactions and highlights spectacular figures that do not stand up to verification.

In brief

• Absolute documented record: the 30-litre Midas of Armand de Brignac, £120,000 in London in 2011, a club price and not an auction.
• Record for a 75cl bottle at auction: Perrier-Jouët 1874, £42,875 at Christie’s in 2021, followed by the Dom Pérignon Rosé 1959 of the Shah of Iran.
• Available for purchase today: Dom Pérignon Plénitude P3 1990 at €4,550 and Krug Clos d’Ambonnay 2006 at €3,225 at Millésima (noted on 29/09/2026).
• Handle with caution: the $275,000 of the Heidsieck 1907, the Goût de Diamants at £1.2 million and the magnum at $2.5 million sold with NFTs.

Armand de Brignac Midas, the record-breaking 30 litres

Armand de Brignac · Brut Gold non-vintage · 30-litre Midas · £120,000 (approximately $190,000) · London, June 2011.

This is the largest sum ever documented for a single container of champagne. An American professional gambler paid for it in a private club in Park Lane, adding a Methuselah from the same house for £25,000. This is a club price, including service, and not an auction sale.

The Midas, which weighs approximately 45 kilos, is equivalent to 40 bottles; according to the press release issued at the time, only six copies existed in the world then.

Perrier-Jouët 1874, Christie’s record

Perrier-Jouët · Brut Millésimé · 1874 · 75cl bottle · £42,875 (approximately $56,800) · Christie’s London, December 2021.

For the first time in its history, the Épernay house opened its oenothèque for the “Finest and Rarest Wines & Spirits” sale. Estimated at most £15,000, lot 288 almost tripled its high estimate and set Christie’s record for a bottle of champagne.

The price included a private experience at the Maison Belle Époque for ten people, with a tasting of the 1874 alongside cellar master Séverine Frerson and a dinner by Pierre Gagnaire. The bottle, without a label, had spent nearly 150 years undisturbed in the house’s cellars.

Dom Pérignon Rosé Gold 1996 in Methuselah

Dom Pérignon · Rosé Gold · 1996 · 6-litre Methuselah · $53,000 · London, May 2010.

The bottle, clad in a rose gold-plated metallic case, was ordered by an anonymous client at the bar of the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair. The total bill reached $76,000 once tip and service were added, which is over $2,000 per glass.

The figure of $49,000, often cited, does not refer to any dated transaction we could find. Like the Midas, this is a bar price, not an auction.

Veuve Clicquot from the Baltic shipwreck

Veuve Clicquot · 19th-century bottle salvaged from the Baltic Sea · €30,000 · Acker Merrall & Condit, Mariehamn, 3 June 2011.

In July 2010, divers recovered 168 bottles from a schooner sunk more than 50 metres deep off Föglö, in the Åland archipelago. Among them, 145 champagnes: 95 Juglar, 46 Veuve Clicquot and 4 Heidsieck, preserved for nearly two centuries in darkness and cold.

The Veuve Clicquot sold for €30,000, a record announced by the auction house and paid by a Singaporean bidder. The proceeds from the sale funded Baltic water quality and underwater archaeology.

Dom Pérignon Rosé 1959, the Shah’s champagne

Dom Pérignon · Rosé · 1959 · two 75cl bottles · $84,700 per lot · Acker Merrall & Condit, New York, 25 April 2008.

This rosé was never commercialised: Moët & Chandon produced 306 bottles, all reserved for the Shah of Iran for the 1971 celebrations marking 2,500 years of the Persian Empire founded by Cyrus. Each bottle thus fetched over $42,000.

The lot came from the collection of New York developer Robert A. Rosania, a great connoisseur of old champagnes.

Juglar, the lost house salvaged in Åland

Juglar · 19th-century bottle from the Föglö shipwreck · €24,000 · Acker Merrall & Condit, Mariehamn, 3 June 2011.

Juglar, merged into Jacquesson in 1829, formed the bulk of the cargo with 95 bottles. The same Singaporean buyer acquired it on the same day as the Veuve Clicquot.

A second sale, in June 2012, dispersed eight other bottles from the wreck for a total of €109,000, well below the expected €200,000: the curiosity had lost its element of surprise.

Dom Pérignon P3 1966, star of Sotheby’s Paris

Dom Pérignon · Plénitude P3 · 1966 · magnum · €23,750 fees included · Sotheby’s Paris, 20 June 2024.

The magnum was sold at Sotheby’s first sale entirely dedicated to champagne, from the cellar of collector Pierre Chen, which totalled €1.35 million. Estimated between €7,500 and €9,500, it exceeded its high estimate by almost 150%.

This was the highest price obtained that day for a single container, the other leading lots being cases of several magnums of Salon or Krug.

Krug 1928, the former world record

Krug · Krug Collection · 1928 · 75cl bottle · HK$164,560 (US$21,200) · Acker Merrall & Condit, Hong Kong, March 2009.

From the Reims house’s vintage library, the bottle exceeded its high estimate, set at HK$120,000. It then held the world record for a bottle of champagne at auction.

The 1928 vintage is considered by specialists to be one of the greatest champagnes ever produced. Five years earlier, a bottle signed by Henri and Rémi Krug did not exceed £1,955 in London.

Pol Roger 1914, a war vintage

Pol Roger · Extra Cuvée de Réserve · 1914 · 75cl bottle · $19,360 · Acker Merrall & Condit, New York, 25 April 2008.

Sold on the same evening as the Dom Pérignon Rosé 1959, this bottle was born from the autumn 1914 harvest, when war had just broken out and Champagne was on the front line. The same sale saw a Pol Roger 1892 go for $11,495.

The Épernay house, Winston Churchill’s favourite champagne, sees its old vintages sought after by collectors worldwide.

Heidsieck 1907, the myth of the Jönköping

Heidsieck & Co Monopole · Goût Américain · 1907 · bottle salvaged from the Baltic Sea · around $4,000 at its highest during the first London sale, in the late 1990s.

According to the house, the ship Jönköping was carrying 3,000 bottles destined for the Imperial Russian army when a German submarine sank it on 3 November 1916. Divers recovered 2,400, intact at 64 metres deep, in July 1998.

The price of $275,000 per bottle, cited everywhere, is not linked to any identifiable sale: no auction house, no date, no buyer. Documented transactions are in the thousands of dollars, which places this legendary champagne at the bottom of our verified ranking.

Truly purchasable exceptional champagnes

The records above belong to auction houses. Here’s what can be ordered today: public prices noted on 29 September 2026 at Millésima, all taxes included, bottles indicated in stock on that day.

At the top, the Dom Pérignon Rosé Vintage 2000 in a golden box, Methuselah 6-litre format, is priced at €39,000: in line with the Rosé Gold 1996 in our ranking. In 75cl, Dom Pérignon’s Plénitude P3 leads the way with the 1990 at €4,550 and the 1993 at €4,475; the P2 Rosé 2000 is offered at €2,350.

At Krug, the Clos d’Ambonnay 2006 is sold for €3,225 and the Clos du Mesnil 2008 for €2,090. Salon, which produces only one cuvée, offers its 2013 at €1,450 and its 2015 at €1,260.

At Louis Roederer, the Cristal Vinothèque 2004 is offered at €1,100 and the Cristal Rosé 2015 at €580. Armand de Brignac asks €995 for its Blanc de Noirs Assemblage 5, and up to €30,400 for its Brut Rosé in a 15-litre Nebuchadnezzar.

Boërl & Kroff remains the most elusive: according to its wine merchant’s description, the house produces its numbered champagnes in magnum and larger formats, only in exceptional years. At the Maison Wineted wine merchant, the Boërl & Kroff 2002 is priced at €5,880 and the B de Boërl & Kroff 2005 at €433, both sold out on 29 September 2026. In March 2021, a British wine investment company offered a 30-litre Melchizedek of the 1995 vintage, one of four existing, for £173,000: an asking price, with no known public sale.

Why such prices

First, the terroir. The most expensive cuvées often come from a clos, a unique walled plot. Krug’s Clos du Mesnil covers 1.84 hectares in Mesnil-sur-Oger, walled since 1698 and vinified separately since 1979. The Clos d’Ambonnay measures only 0.68 hectares, protected by its walls since 1766 and acquired by Krug in 1994: a confidential production, reserved for years deemed worthy.

Then, rarity. Salon produces only a blanc de blancs from Mesnil-sur-Oger, from a one-hectare plot and nineteen smaller plots, and only 37 vintages were produced in the 20th century. Its wines age for an average of ten years in the cellar before being sold.

Time, too. Dom Pérignon’s Plénitudes, P2 then P3, are vintages kept much longer on lees than the classic Vintage before disgorgement: the P3 1990 arrives on the market more than thirty years after its harvest, and its price is multiplied accordingly.

Finally, large formats do not follow a rule of three. At Millésima, Armand de Brignac Brut Gold costs €280 for 75cl, but €20,150 for a 15-litre Nebuchadnezzar, which is over €1,000 per bottle equivalent. The Methuselah of Dom Pérignon Rosé 2000 costs €4,875 per equivalent bottle, while the Rosé Vintage 2009 sells for €445 for 75cl. At auction, history (shipwrecks, imperial orders) and sometimes private experiences included in the lot are added.

Figures to read with caution

The “Taste of Diamonds” by Goût de Diamants, presented in 2013 as being worth £1.2 million, owes its value to its casing: an 18-carat solid white gold casing centred on a 19-carat diamond, a unique piece designed by creator Alexander Amosu. No sale of this bottle has been documented, and its price is due to the jewel much more than to the wine it contains.

The magnum of Champagne Avenue Foch 2017, sold for $2.5 million in July 2022, was associated with digital works in the form of NFTs: the buyer had to destroy the token to receive the physical bottle. The price remunerates the digital object, not the wine, which comes from premier cru grapes from Chamery.

Finally, a sale of a Krug Clos du Mesnil 1979 for $242,000 in 2015 circulates online. We have found no trace of it in published auction house results, and we discard it, like the $275,000 attributed to the Heidsieck 1907.

Cover photo: Tomas er / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0