Paris Match article, 30 April 2026
Page 1 – (photo that covers two pages of François Audouze sitting in the middle of his collection of empty bottles)
He is the greatest collector of ancient wines in the world. At 83 years old, the man has opened the doors of his Ali Baba cave full of exceptional wines
FRANÇOIS AUDOUZE LORD OF THE CASTLES
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A real liquid gold mine… that makes one’s head spin. As Scrooge has his safe, each piece of which contains a memory, an emotion, an adventure, François Audouze has one of the most fabulous collections of wine gems in France: 40,000 priceless bottles for most of their canonical age, covering more than 5,000 estates. But unlike the extremely wealthy duck, the former steel industrialist has a sense of sharing. No way are we going to accumulate labels for the simple pleasure of hoarding and reselling. The credo of this hedonist steeped in ancient wisdom: « As long as a bottle is not drunk, it has no value. Once drunk, it has none left.”
Photos Baptiste Giroudon
Report by Nicolas Delesalle
(Photo comment): Above his cellar, in a secure warehouse in the suburbs of Paris, his trophy room: 9,000 bottles, emptied from the early 2000s. In his hand a mathusalem of La Tâche du Domaine de la Romanée Conti, vintage 1957.
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Never drink alone, that’s his golden rule. Each month, it’s the same ritual: a star-studded table, ten or so great forgotten nectars and as many privileged people who have spent up to several thousand euros for this unique experience. « Such a beautiful death for these bottles », jokes the one that Bernard Pivot nicknamed « the Bossuet of old bottles ». Even if the orations of François Audouze are not funeral, his own end, this eternal optimist balks at considering it. To the rhythm of his « wine-dinners » it will take him another hundred years to empty his cellar.
(Comment photo): the wine pairing of the day: a champagne from Bollinger la Grande Année 1985 and caviar. Apostle of slow oxygenation, François Audouze opens at least four hours before taking action.
(Photo comment): the collector also keeps the caps and capsules! At his death, he hopes, his empty bottles will go to a museum or be destroyed to prevent them from falling into the hands of counterfeiters.
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(Comment photo): bottles of Constantia, legendary South African brew prized by Napoleon. In his collection, the oldest vintage dates back to 1690!
(Comment photo): more than a ceremonial, the tasting is the delicate art of dialogue with the past. / Since December 2000, the former financier has organized no less than 308 dinners. Here, in his office hangar with some of his closest friends.
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With Audouze, there is no garden. One wine is a « good guy » and another is « quite strong nonetheless. »
It’s a lost place, somewhere in the Paris region. An anonymous hangar that looks abandoned. François Audouze, the world’s greatest collector of vintage wines, invited us here. Under its cafardeux airs, the place hides in its midst an invaluable treasure: the most fascinating cellar of the planet. Nicknamed « the Bossuet of old bottles » by Bernard Pivot, the host greets us with a light step. He has a clear eye, a mischievous tone, and, like his wines, is well suited for his 83 printemps (vintage 1943). But before showing us the cellar, François Audouze opens a garage door and we slip into stairs to reach a room transformed into a strange art gallery: 9,000 empty bottles look at us, lined up on the floor, as if on parade. Dozens of Château d’Yquem, three rows of Romanée Conti, Pétrus, Haut-Brion, mythical wines, the drops of God. Even empty, these bottles are worth a fortune (between 200 and 1000 euros), « it’s not even 30% of what I drank, » laughs the collector. To give you an idea, since 2000 I have drunk 19,000 wines; and 700 from the Domaine de la Romanée Conti. Full, these bottles are priceless. A Romanée Conti from 1945 was sold for $812,000 recently. I drank the same one, two years ago, for a lot less, it’s an unforgettable memory. François Audouze is undoubtedly the man who has ingested the most Romanée Conti on the surface of the globe. « I have also drunk 107 vintages of Yquem. My favorite is 1861. The important thing is to open the bottle. Wink.
Unlike other collectors who are jealous of their precious liquids, François Audouze wants to keep his cellar alive. Every day he acquires new specimens, and every month he opens exceptional bottles during meals organized in great restaurants. A dozen guests each time are ready to pay several thousand euros to taste the complex flavors of which François Audouze is the specialist, he, the smuggler, who shares his emotions on a blog and now on Instagram. More than a thousand posts already written. No pranks with François Audouze. No crushed strawberries. No smell of undergrowth. No jargon. Technical skills. He doesn’t care about winemaking methods. One wine is a « good lad, » another, « quite strong nonetheless. »
Nothing predestined François Audouze to sit at the very top of such a collection. Polytechnicien (he entered X at 18!), promoted to general manager of a steel company at 27, he made his fortune in the industry thanks to 25 years of hard work. His company has 400 employees when it enters, and 4,000 when he leaves. « Wine was a way to relax. With friends, we opened beautiful bottles. I never remembered which one we had drunk. And it annoyed me. So I started keeping the empty bottles to remember. » One day in 1975, he took part in a blind tasting. What he drinks almost knocks him off his chair.
It’s a 1923 Château Climens. « There was something incredibly complex, and passion was born there. »
For François Audouze, time makes great wines and nothing replaces the slow work of hundreds of thousands of hours of silence in the cellars. «Take a 2009 Château Latour, it’s a very great wine. In the big restaurants, it’s 4,000 euros a bottle, but he’s a dwarf compared to a 1929 Latour. The 2009 will become as big as the 1929, but we have to wait 80 years. The wine keeps improving and growing. Of course, there are losses if the cellar or cork is not good. But the wine is destined to age forever. I once drank a Château Latour 1794 and it was divine. No one wants to believe it!” Sure of his flair, little by little, the industrialist builds up his collection. He doesn’t read anything. He trusts his palate. « When I love, I go there. By the way, are we going?”
Let’s go for a fabulous slide in a huge toboggan of emotions. Let’s go down the stairs again. An armored door; it’s the smell of humidity that strikes first. A rich, soft humidity. Hundreds of bottles are offered to us, the biggest names, and this time, they are really full! The…
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(Photo comment): in his cellar filled with masterpieces, where nothing is classified. Here with a Château Margaux 1934 jeroboam (imperial).
… dates give vertigo: 1927, 1945, 1949. On a table, the latest arrival: old Algerian wines, including a Sidi Brahim that catches our eye. « This one is phenomenal. Anyway, every time I come, it’s not me who chooses the bottle. It’s the bottle that chooses me. » There are treasures everywhere, in a mess that only Audouze knows how to unravel: here an entire wall filled with Romanée Conti, one of which is dated 1875. « I have already tasted a 1879 (1899) of absolute rarity! » There are the bottles of Constantia from South Africa, the nectar of the 18th and 19th centuries. Napoleon drank it. Wisely placed on shelves, Pétrus from 1945 alongside Château Margaux from 1934. There, a sweet wine from 1727, here an Yquem from 1848 next to a Haut-Brion from 1969, further away from the Chartreuses from the 1920s, even further away a strange bottle in the shape of a drop. It dates from 1690, bottled under Louis XIV. « I drank it, it’s fabulous. The wine is flat as hell. But what matters is having drunk it. I might soon taste the wine from an amphora from 60 BC. I’ll be entitled to a thimble and even if it’s dead, I don’t care. It’s the symbol. » Has he ever been disappointed? « Never. I respect wine, even if it has a flaw. The important gesture is openness. A bottle calls: « take me. » We don’t judge a wine, we try to understand it. We try. The more humble we are, the more we will understand a wine. The more we think we know, the less we will understand it. »
Audouze is a Polytechnic poet who loves time travel and the intoxication of perfumes from vanished eras. He no longer drinks his wines, their memory is inscribed in his palate and in his brain he sniffs them and spits them out. And never taste without your friends. « I used to come home from dinner and collapse on the bed. But I don’t need to drink anymore. And I am incredibly lucky that my wife does not drink: if she drank, I would already be dead, » he said with a smile. « The whole world envies me for this thing, » he says, contemplating his collection. « Immensely rich people buy crates of Pétrus? As for me, I buy the Petrus one by one. There are cellars of the rich and cellars of enthusiasts; and I probably have the most beautiful cellar of ancient wines. » For Audouze, the two greatest years since 1800 are 1811 and 1865. We will trust him! At his next meal, the lucky ones will be able to drink two 1811 and five 1865. « No one can redo this meal anymore. It’s a unique journey through time. »
Friends come to join the master of wine for a lunch organized for the photo Paris Match. Among them, a Normalien, a high-flying mathematician, and amateurs of bottle diving who answered the call. In front of them, Audouze is saddened by the state of the wine today, when the new bottles are swallowed without waiting, when the cellars disappear. Our society no longer knows how to wait. For the master of ancient bottles, the world of wine must survive this pitfall. «This is the world of green strawberries. Let’s imagine a fruit market that only sells green strawberries. People buy, eat and get used to them. No one knows what red strawberries are. Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing right now. We drink wines that are too young: 80% of bus wines aren’t made. What a waste! » Audouze is also concerned about the disaffection of young people. He makes them convince that wine is something, that it’s important in France, a way to communicate, to be happy together. We are at a turning point. We have to go towards them. If we do nothing, the wine will disappear. » We let François and his guests enjoy their meal and their nectars. On the Internet, we can check Audouze’s dark omen: since 1960, wine consumption in France has indeed dropped by 70%, from 127 to 40 liters per year. And nothing indicates that the curve will not increase in the future. The programmed death of wine, or at least its inevitable decline, transforms François Audouze’s collection into something even rarer: an artifact of a vanishing world. And his fight for the old magical drinks becomes a quixotic gesture.
We hoped for it without believing it. The hosts of François Audouze invite us to their table at fu cheese time. We relish with envy these glasses full of promises; The Normalien guest enjoys in front of us the association of a gorgonzola with a 1979 Mouton Rothschild. Audouze is known for instinctively finding the wine that best suits a dish. By chance, the guest suggests that we move on to practice to check this gift and, in the process, taste an old wine for the first time in our lives. The normalien guides us. You must first chew the cheese, slowly, then swallow it, count five good seconds and, on this ramp of momentum, finally let the ruby liquid run down your throat. Then something miraculous happens: the complex flavors of wine electrify the cheese particles. It’s an aurora borealis that we swallow and strange tears come up in our eyes. « He has a phenomenal ability to find the right associations. I don’t know how he does it,’ comments the Normalien. Audouze smiles: ‘I don’t even know myself.’
