French President's Wine Auction Rakes In $934,000
France's Treasury must be pretty happy right about now; last week's auction of the French government's 12,000 bottles of wine raised some €720,000, or $934,000 for the government.
CNN reports that every single bottle put up to auction was sold, with three bottles of wine from the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti area selling for €5,875 (or $7,600).
The proceeds, which were three times more than expected, will be invested into more wines (although lower priced) to serve when entertaining visiting politicians and dignitaries, while the rest of the pool will be used to "ease a budget squeeze," CNN reports. The whole point of the auction was to have the French government "return to austerity," The New York Times reported in May, and while the government might be tightening its belt, the rest of the winos, it turns out, are not. Then again, the sale was only 10 percent of the French government's wine cellar, CNN says.