Rare bottle of wine auctioned for world-record Sh56.3 million

A rare bottle of French Burgundy has set a new world record for a single bottle of wine of any size after fetching $558,000 (Sh56.3 million) at Sotheby's auction house in New York. 

The bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti is more than 17 times its original estimate of $32,000 (Sh3.2 million). Another bottle of the same wine fetched $496,000 (Sh50 million).

Both bottles broke the record for the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold, which is a three-litre bottle of 1945 Mouton-Rothschild sold for $310,000 (Sh31.2 million) at Sotheby's in 2007, CNBC reported. Despite their "heavily damp-stained..and partially missing labels," the two bottles are "rare and wonderful," Serena Sutcliffe, head of Sotheby's international wine department said.