10. Charlie Trotter: 4,000 bottles
Until he auctioned his collection off with Christie’s, food celebrity Charlie Trotter had amassed no fewer than 4,000 bottles, including large-format bottles so big they required special equipment to carry and transport.
9. Leslie Rudd: 10,000 bottles
Restaurateur Leslie Rudd has collected an enormous 10,000 bottles since he began his wine pursuits. His exclusively Napa-only collection features every possible variety produced in the Napa Valley region.
8. La Tour d’Argent: 15,000 bottles
Commonly accepted as having the greatest wine list in France, Parisian restaurant La Tour d’Argent encourages diners to arrive hours before their reservation just so they can give the wine list the attention it deserves (the wine menu itself weighs an impressive 9kg!).
7. Tawfiq Khoury: 65,000 bottles
Once the holder of one of the largest private collections in the US, Tawfiq Khoury auctioned off his 65,000 bottle-strong collection of wine with Christie’s to the tune of $2.5m, although the exact figure was never revealed.
6. Restaurant Latour: 100,000 bottles
Gene Mulvihill’s enormous wine collection is displayed at New Jersey’s Restaurant Latour and features only the best wines – no fillers, according to Mulvihill. The cellar also houses a nuclear magnetic resonance technology laboratory which helps analyse the wines without disruption.
5. Bodega 1860: 129,000 bottles
Located in Spain’s beautiful Basque Country, this collection – preserved by the Marques de Riscal winery – features vintages from every year since 1862 and is kept strictly under lock and key. Only the top VIPs are able to sample the wines.
4. Graycliff Hotel: 250,000 bottles
This Barbadian hotel – named after real-life pirate of the Caribbean Captain Howard Graysmith – is home to a quarter of a million bottles from more than 400 vintners in 15 countries. Among the collection is a bottle of 1727 Rudesheimer Apostelwein, one of the oldest and most valuable bottles known today.
3. Bern’s Steakhouse: 500,000 bottles
Founded in 1956, this Florida restaurant is home to the third-largest wine collection in the world where staff recently unearthed a surprise gem; a $30,000 bottle of 1947 Chateau Latour.
2. Hotel de Paris: 600,000 bottles
This enormous wine cellar has been hollowed out of rock beneath Monte-Carlo’s Hotel de Paris, and measures 1,500m² with a full kilometre of wine racks.
1. Milestii Mici: 2,000,000 bottles
The world’s biggest wine collection (pictured) is housed in its very own city, stretching 250 kilometres across underground Moldova – you need a car to get from one side to the other and staff rely on bikes to get around. Recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records, the cellar is a maze of ‘streets’ all named after various types of wine. And good news for oenophiles, the tasting halls are open for tours.
