Ghosts of prices past – and Latour 1970

English wine merchant Barry Phillips of Four Walls Wine (once of The White Horse at Chilgrove whose wine list won many an award) appended these rather sickening observations to a recent email to me:

We enjoyed a few bottles of 1967 Lynch Bages on Christmas Day at our son's house. I bought these en primeur for him from Morgan Furze in 1969 at £19.20 ($33) a dozen. Seems cheap until I look at the Petrus 1967 for which I paid £32.70 ($55). I was not just allowed to buy six cases, but they actually begged me to help them by...