With its exceptional quality and character, Petrus is one of the most celebrated and privileged wines of Bordeaux.

2 bottles of Petrus ’82 were purchased for $16,640 U.S. dollars in 2012. Last year, a case of Chateau Petrus ‘98 sold for $41,500. With its exceptional quality and character, Petrus is one of the most celebrated and privileged wines of Bordeaux. But is a mere sip of Petrus really worth that much? Here are 5 reasons why it absolutely is:

1) There are barely any bottles produced each year

There are only 2,500 cases of Petrus produced each year- that’s .0064% of the number of Bordeaux cases produced each year. The extreme rarity is why Serena Sutcliffe, Soetheby’s head of wine, once said that “the highest compliment you can pay a guest is to open a bottle of Petrus for him or her.”

2) The vineyard is extremely small – and ancient

While most vineyards range from 50 to 100 hectares, the vineyard of Petrus only spans 11.42 hectares, made up almost entirely from Merlot grapes. Their vineyard is the only vineyard in Pomerol, a commune in Southwestern France, which is entirely composed of 1 million year old thick gravel and 40 million year old clay soil. This blue clay not only gives the grapes a distinctive quality, it preserves the moisture of the grapes during dry summers.

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3) Extreme measure are taken to protect the grapes

In 1987, the estate experienced an extremely hot summer followed by non-stop rain. To safeguard the quality of their grapes, they hired a helicopter to hover over the fruits and dry them. To prevent the amount of rain heavily permeating the soil, the estate used plastic sheets to cover the ground in 1992.

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4) There’s no second wine at Petrus

Unlike other types of Bordeaux wine where less favorable vines are used to make a second or third wine, there is no second wine from Petrus. What do they do with the rejected grapes? They sell them off as generic Pomerol.

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5) The best years are the most expensive

Be warned that not all years of Petrus are created equal. The best years of Petrus are 1989, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2009 and 2010. The 12-bottle cases of 1989 and 1990 were sold for US$79,000 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale of the Great American Collector. On the same day, a 12-bottle case of 1995 Petrus achieved $73,000. A 6-magnum lot of 2005 reached $57,000 during the Vega Sicilia auction at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong last year. Lesser years include 1983, 1985, 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997. Below that are 1973, 1975, 1976, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and the very difficult ones are 1972, 1974 and 1984. In 1965 and 1991, the quality of harvest was so poor that any bottle from this year on the label is a fake.

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Passionate customers of the wine admire the quality and rarity that drinking Petrus offers them, pushing up the already high demand. Raw passion is what drives these prices so high- and justifiably so. Next time you’re presented with a US$5,000 Petrus bottle, know that you’re getting it for a bargain.

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