2008
Year in which, for the first time, a U.S. wine broke the $500-a-bottle price ceiling. That wine was the 2006 Harlan Estate from the Napa Valley. A previous record—for the first wine to cost $100 a bottle—was set in 1989 by Diamond Creek winery, also in the Napa Valley, for its 1987 “Lake Vineyard” Cabernet Sauvignon.