The Daily Mail recently published Queen Elizabeth's 2015 bill, which cost £1.4 million to entertain guests at Buckingham Palace. According to the annual report on royal grants, the Queen received a stipend of £42 million this year, and the amount of money she spent on wine and spirits was as high as £250,000, equivalent to more than 2 million yuan!
So, 1 year of wine money of 2 million, what wine has the Queen of England drunk over the years?
Every day the Queen comes to order wine
Queen Elizabeth is britain's longest-reigning monarch and the longest-lived monarch in the world. Someone once summed up the longevity secrets of this super long standby queen, and one of them turned out to be "drinking tea and wine every day"! The Queen's royal chef Margaret Rhodes has revealed that the Queen's usual drinking habits are relatively fixed, and before lunch, the Queen's must-have pre-dinner wines are Gordon Gin and Dubonnet, plus a slice of lemon and a lot of ice. The queen also likes to drink wine for lunch, and in the evening to drink a dry martini, a glass of champagne. In this way, the queen's alcohol intake can be said to be very good!
(1) Gordon Gin
Gordon's Wines was founded in 1769 and was appointed royal wine by King George V of the United Kingdom in 1925. Gordon Gin is a London dry gin with water, wheat, barley malt, juniper nuts and natural flavors. Gordon Gin is the world's number one selling gin, selling 4 bottles per second.
(2) Dubenne
Dubenet is the king of French aperitifs, bitters, which are made by dipping quinine, bark, grass roots, spices and herbs in wine or distilled spirits.
(3) Martini
The Martini brand was founded in Turin, Italy, in 1863, and a hundred years later, martini became the royal wine of the royal family. Martini is said to be Queen Elizabeth's aperitif before dinner.
It is natural to entertain visitors with wine
Some have calculated that the Queen spends about a third of her time each year entertaining about 96,000 guests. According to Jancis Robinson, a wine master who selected wines for the Queen, the Queen's cellar was built in 1703 and maintained at a temperature of 9-13°C throughout the year. Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle host more than 300 events a year and consume 5,000 bottles of wine.
The outside world may think that the Queen's cellar must be the best wine in the world, but in fact, because there are too many guests to entertain, taxpayer money is spent, and it is affected by the financial budget, most of the wines are not so top-notch. For example, Chateau Meyney, Chateau Beau-Site, vintage-free champagne, cheap Sauvignon Blanc and basic Bordeaux red wines. Of course, there will also be top wines, such as Quinta do Noval in 1963, Chateau Chasse-Spleen in 1990, Latour in 1995, etc., which are generally drunk on the most important occasions.
If the Queen of England holds a state banquet, she can choose wine from the Lancaster House, the UK government's wine cellar. This cellar is home to a large number of big names, including wines from all over the world. It can be described as the "secret weapon of British diplomacy", the heads of government may fight for the national interest during the day, and at the time of the dinner, a few glasses of fine wine are under the belly, and everyone's body is softened.
In October 2015, during Xi Jinping's state visit to the UK, Queen Elizabeth hosted an official dinner at Buckingham Palace with the following wines:
(1) 2009 Ridgeview Grosvenor Brut: This wine is a high-end British sparkling wine made using traditional methods.
(2) Chateau Haut-Brion in 1989: This wine received a perfect score from Robert Parker.
(2) Symington Family Warre's Vintage Port in 1977: This wine comes from the Douro appellation in northern Portugal, and the 1977 vintage is also Porter's super vintage.
(4) Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Meursault-Santenots, 2007 vintage
(5) Klein Constantia Vin de Constance Natural Sweet Wine of 2008
You can also get some wine on various anniversaries
(1) The 25th anniversary of the Queen's coronation - Royal Deer Cognac
In 1962, Hine became the only cognac to be eligible for royal use. In 1977, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, the Mika family offered top-of-the-line vintage, and the rest of the year was bottled in 1987. At an auction in 2013, the wine sold for £920 (about $8,547) per bottle.
(2) The 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation - Mamm Champagne
On 2 June 2013, the 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation, Champagne G.H. Mumm introduced a bespoke label. Marm Champagne has been buckingham Palace's official champagne supplier since 1904. Mamm Champagne invited calligrapher Sally Mangum to design the label and use it on six 1.5-litre bottles of Cordon Rouge (Red Belt) non-vintage Champagne. One bottle was presented to the Queen during the Royal Coronation And one was auctioned off to raise funds for the Queen's Scholarship Foundation.
(3) The Queen's Golden Wedding Commemoration - 1986 Ssak Castle
The 1997 Golden Wedding of the Queen of england and Prince Philip, the only wine used at the 1986 Dinner at Saxe Castle. Located in the Haut-Medoc appellation of Bordeaux, France, the Castello de Saxe is one of the most famous Bordeaux mid-level estates.
(4) Su Tortoise is corrupt
When Queen Elizabeth attended the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landing, she expressed her love for foie gras with suturbgunt. The Gilent Councillors decided to give the Queen 6 bottles of Solitaire's Expensive Wine as a gift. The 6 selected Su tortoises are:
2009 Chateau Guiraud
2009 Chateau Bastor-Lamontagne
Chateau Rabaud-Promis 2009
Chateau La Clotte-Cazalis 2009
Domaine de l'Alliance 2011
Chateau Laville 2009
(5) The 90th anniversary of the Queen of England's birth - Glam Brown Potter
In 2016, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Queen's birth, Graham, a well-known Portuguese porter brand, launched the Gram 90 Year Brown Porter (Limited Edition).
The Glam 90's Brown Porter (Limited Edition) is a blend of 3 vintages of potter, of which 40% were in 1912, 40% in 1935 and 20% in 1924. Combined with the best of 3 vintages, the consistency and complexity of the palate is extraordinary. After tasting this port wine, the Queen of England spoke highly of it.
In addition, Glam also released the 1952 Colheita Ports (from a single year of brown port, the shortest ripening time is 8 years) to commemorate the Queen of England's diamond wedding anniversary, it is not difficult to see the deep relationship between Glam and the British royal family.