Sip this: You should be so lucky

Bali’s best kept secret must be the bottle of 1811 Chateau d’Yquem on display in Sip Wine Bar in Seminyak.

Owner Christian Vanneque went into the Guinness Book of Records in 2011 for the The World’s Most Expensive Bottle of White Wine, when he paid US$117,000 for it.

Vanneque recently announced wine brokers dinners at his Bali restaurant and while you might get to look at the 1811 Chateau d’Yquem, you won’t get to drink it.

He’s saving it to drink with his pals in Paris.

"In France a wine broker or ‘courtier en vins’ works exclusively with a number of wine proprietors and wineries and they propose their finds to people in the trade such as restaurants, hotels and wine shops," said Vanneque.

"And in the spirit of this respected profession we have created ‘wine broker nights’.

"We will serve an authentic three-course French menu together with a selection of 10 reds, nine whites, one rose, and one champagne to choose from, and these will change every month and are not found on our regular wine list."

Vanneque marks up wines 20% – a typical broker’s commission though an unusually low margin for a restaurant – and invites guests to choose wine they believe best complements their dinner.

The monthly dinners are closed to walk-in guests and reserved for 45 people. Like the wine selection, the three-course dinner items are not found on Sip’s regular menu.

More information at http://sip-bali.com/

In Bali, Christian and Daniel Vanneque operate both a traditional French brasserie, Sip Wine Bar, and Ginger Moon, a casual dining venue they refer to as a "modern Asian canteen" designed for franchise expansion this year.

The brothers have an interesting history. Their mother was a ballerina in the corps de ballet of the Strasbourg Opera and their father played a trumpet in a circus band.

Christian and his younger brother were raised by grandparents who operated the only three-fork Michelin country inn near Nancy, L’Hostellerie de la Cote Noiriel.

When Christian was 20, he became France’s youngest head sommelier at the then Michelin three-star La Tour d’Argent in Paris, responsible for the largest restaurant wine cellar in the world, heading a team of 14 sommeliers and cellar men.

He also operated Jack Nicholson’s private club in Los Angeles, Helena’s, as well as L’Orangerie restaurant and the Four Seasons Beverly Hills’s restaurant.

Daniel, five years younger, was a recognised sommelier at La Tour D’Argent and with his brother co-owner of the Brasserie Gus in Paris.

He later operated three other restaurants in the capital, Le Petit Nicois, La Belle Corisande, and Lord Sandwich, before rejoining Christian in introducing La Palette in New York City’s Upper East Side in 1993.

Daniel moved to Bali in 1994, married a Balinese woman and presided over the island’s top restaurant of the time, Warisan.

Christian followed in 2001, opening Sip Wine Bar, now rated one of the best restaurants in Indonesia.

He plans to drink the 1811 Chateau d’Yquem with friends in 2017, at La Tour d’Argent in Paris, to mark the 50th anniversary of his career.

Until then, it is displayed at Sip Wine Bar, safeguarded in a bulletproof glass case that is temperature and humidity-controlled.