Nor was her dinner companion.Īt the moment the manager was assembling the salad, the couple were engaged in a meticulously planned attempt to relieve one of the world’s finest restaurant cellars of its greatest treasures in a €1.6m wine theft that would make headlines around the world, trigger an international police operation and end, two months ago, with lengthy prison terms. What the manager did not know – and what would not become painfully evident until 12 hours later – was that the woman in 107 was not who she claimed to be. It was 2.10am on Wednesday 27 October 2021. Fifteen minutes, he told her, then he left reception and went to the kitchen. “But then I thought: ‘This is a five-star hotel, I must serve her.’” The hungry woman accepted his offer of a salad and asked how long it would take. Three times the guest asked if he couldn’t rustle up a little something and three times he politely refused. ![]() The night manager said he was sorry, but the kitchen was closed. “But asking for something to eat? That was very, very odd.” “People sometimes ask for a herbal tea, or a coffee, or a glass of something,” he would recall in court later. In the eight years he had spent in the elegant gloom of Atrio, a luxury restaurant and hotel in Cáceres, three hours’ drive south-west of Madrid, the night manager could recall only two similar requests. That's how the cellar of the Tour d'Argent is perhaps the only place in the world where a billionaire has ever staged a hold-up.Īll these treasures were saved from the German occupation during the Second World War thanks to Claude Terrail, who walled up part of the cellars on the night of the 14th of June 1940.W asn’t it a little odd, thought the night manager, that the woman in room 107 should be peckish so soon after finishing the hotel’s 14-course tasting menu, a paean to the pig featuring tuna belly with red lard, scallops and pig’s trotters, pork jowl pudding with caviar, and Iberian meatballs with cod tripe that had concluded, inevitably, with chocolate and coffee served with aged ham. The other one was stolen by Pierpont Morgan and replaced with a letter of excuse and a blank check, which André Terrail sent back. Here now, are the two gems of our cellars, two very rare flasks these two bottles of Napoleon brandy are the very ones that André Terrail used to take legitimate pride in. This wine, “The Corsairs’ wine” and in fact the collection, were the trophy of a defeated buccaneer. Each one of these bottles would have been used as a reward for a glorious act or as money in illicit deals. To be honest, they contain a very average beverage, a wine well past its time. Let’s take a look at these curious bottles. Let us read them out: Fine Champagne, Logis de Servolles 1797, and a Cognac, Clos du Griffier 1788, the finest ever. Here, among so many famous others, you can see the three finest jewels of former Burgundian grape crops a Chambertin 1865, a Clos-Vougeot 1870, a Romanée 1874. Yet, our cellars are mostly devoted to burgundy wine. Even more exalted still is the 1874 vintage, from which we have treasured a Château Rayne-Vigneau and from 1893 we still have a Château Guiraud, whose supreme quality speaks for itself. There is also the ancestor of the white Bordeaux a Château d’Yquem 1871, a year in which the Gods and Heavens particularly favored the Sauternes. In fact, it is from the terrible year of 1870, despite it being a great year for the Medoc vine-grower. One bottle, which is totally covered with dust and whose date you can barely read, is a Château Gruaud-Larose. On its left, lies a Château Citran from the prestigious vintage year, 1865. ![]() Among these 320 000 bottles lying there, some rare trophies, certainly collectors’ items and also some fine specimens selected from unparalleled vintages.Ī Château Citran 1858 is the oldest bottle amongst our cellar wines. The Tour d’Argent prides itself on having the most technically perfect cellars in Paris, whose glorious treasures and most renowned bottles find their most desired casket.
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