The Fine and Rare 1926 is the first wine or spirit to exceed $2 million at auction and has shaped The Macallan’s position as the world’s most collected Scotch whisky. Only 40 bottles of the 60-year-old vintage were produced, never sold publicly, and were distributed to private clients sporadically over several years. A first known private sale in 1987 valued a bottle at $8,000, and later sales surpassed that level multiple times, including trades over $1 million since 2018. The 1926 remains the strongest brand asset and sets the benchmark for later releases. A new Romantica Collection 1986 is positioned as a successor, using the same cask approach and connecting maturation timing to the 1926 extraction year. The label design returns the original three collaborating artists and limits the collection to 86 bottles.
"The Fine and Rare 1926, the first bottle of wine or spirit to exceed $2m at auction, has shaped The Macallan's position as the world's most collected Scotch whisky. There were just 40 bottles of that 60-year-old vintage. They were never sold publicly and handed to private clients sporadically over several years. The first known private sale in 1987 valued the bottle at a then-record of $8,000. Since then, examples of the 1926 have surpassed that mark a further six times and traded for over $1m on eight occasions since 2018."
""It arrived into the market as the most expensive thing you could buy, and it's never yielded that position," says Jonny Fowle, global head of spirits at Sotheby's and lead auctioneer the last time the bottle sold in 2023, for $2.7m. "It stands above the industry and has power over the industry. Anytime the 1926 is sold, it's going to be front-page news.""
"For The Macallan, the 1926 remains its strongest brand asset, but four decades on it's also the benchmark for everything that follows. Which brings us to the Romantica Collection, a new 1986 vintage that is being unapologetically pitched as the natural successor to Scotch whisky's most celebrated and valuable bottle. Romantica is cut from the same cloth as the 1926: an exceptional Scotch whisky aged in a single first-fill sherry-seasoned oak cask. The poetic connection comes from the year 1986: this liquid started its maturation in the same year the 1926 was extracted from Cask #263."
"The label design further strengthens the bond. The trio who collaborated on bottle designs for the 1926 (pop artists Sir Peter Blake and Valerio Adami, and landscape artist Michael Dillon) are back. Each has created a label in their distinct style to form a three-bottle collection, of which only 86 exist."
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