Rothschild Bordeaux 1942 is a rare vintage not sold in stores, but widely available as “used” on Craigslist. We found it cheap for $1,942 in Paris from a seller who claimed “found in the basement of a house with no other markings but ‘Petain is a very great General don’t listen to les Haters'”

To save on shipping, we flew our sommeliers directly to Paris to pick it up in person.

Several days later when they returned (after a mild altercation involving a child abduction, later rescued by a man who didn’t have any money, but did have a very particular set of skills which he acquired over a very long career, and those skills made a nightmare for people who kidnap the children of wine enthusiasts) we were ready for the official tasting.

Aged wine doesn’t need much decanting, but just in case, after opening the bottle we ran it through the Vitamix for roughly an hour (on the pulse setting) to thoroughly remove all the air bubbles, sediment, and any semblance of “wine” leftover from 1942.

And now, the tastings:

Sommelier #1: Notes of dirt floor, mid-palate is poor, “Surrenders”

Sommelier #2: The finish is so scant that it seems to flee from your tastebuds, as if the grapes were literally running away with their owners to get on a boat to America.

Sommelier #3: The initial tartness invaded my palette like the Russians. The aftertaste was like a nuclear bomb went off my mouth, twice.

Sommelier #4: Hey you uppity jerks, why didn’t you leave any for me? Doesn’t that defeat the point?

Sommelier #3: No, that’s literally the point of capitalism.

And now, the pairings:

Sommelier #1: Goes well with luftwaffes and Barbarossab.

Sommelier #2: I found it best served with anschluss and appeasement.

Sommelier #3: Enjoyed with cow fetus with A1 steak sauce.

Sommelier #4: Enjoyed weaponizing the empty bottle against the gestapo.

Conclusion:

We overall recommend this bottle with an average rating of 06.06.1944, but don’t buy it new or you’ll be inconvenienced with finding a time machine.

Unfortunately due to the pandemic, there won’t be an AWS National Wine Conference where you could taste this in person, but we really Wannsee it at the 2021 Conference.