Yesterday, I posted a brain teaser titled “What is this wine worth?” on my WeChat feed that received a vast range of responses, from “worthless” to “invaluable.”

I gave readers the wine’s story, in terms of rarity, relevance and a major “x factor”, and asked them to suggest a fair price for it. I’m curious as to what people here think, too.

The Wine: ‘The Summit’ 2007, the first vintage of Silver Heights, one of China’s most famous wineries.

Production: ~1000 bottles. How many remain unopened? The winery owner told me numerous times that she has no bottles left. The original distributor told me this week, “You are one of the few people in the world, it not the only [one], with those [wines].”

Relevance: This wine helped put the Ningxia region on the world wine map. Critic Jancis Robinson wrote, “It was Silver Heights’ Summit bottlings of their first proper vintage 2007… that first drew my attention to this high-altitude, reclaimed desert of a wine region. It seemed so much better, more concentrated but gentle in texture, than any other Chinese wine I had tasted…”

Quality: This is an x factor. Is this wine still likely to be in good drinking condition? Or is it already “over the hill”?

(As a reference, I tasted a 2011 wine from fellow Ningxia winery Kanaan yesterday, one I understand used fruit from the same vineyard as ‘The Summit’ 2007, and it is still vibrant. See below.)

So, what is a fair price?

The same as what I paid many years ago: ~USD40? Less because of the risk it has aged out? More because of its rarity and history?

And if more, how much more? Is one of the last bottles from the first vintage of a major China winery worth more than, say, a recent bottle from LVMH’s Ao Yun?

What say you? Let me know in the Grape Wall comments on Instagram or Facebook.

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