BECOV NAD TEPLOU, Czech Republic – An extraordinary collection of vintage wine bottles from the late 1800s, concealed beneath a castle chapel during World War Two, is now available for public viewing after an extensive restoration process by the renowned French winery Château d’Yquem.
The remarkable find consists of 133 bottles, with most produced between 1892 and 1899. The wine collection was uncovered in 1985, hidden beneath the chapel floor at Becov castle near the German border, where it had been secretly stored by the castle’s owners at the war’s conclusion.
According to Toni El Khawand, Chateau d’Yquem Cellar Master, the underground hiding spot created ideal storage conditions for preserving the wine’s quality over decades.
Testing conducted in 2016 using a Coravin device – which extracts samples through the cork using a needle without causing damage – confirmed the wine’s remarkable preservation.
“It benefited from very good conditions of conservation, in this old chapel, I think very humid and very cold, with thick walls, and also underground so it preserved the moisture and temperature in a very constant way. Those were excellent conditions to store a wine,” El Khawand explained.
The French winery has carefully recorked multiple bottles during the restoration process, with El Khawand noting that every detail was preserved authentically, including the original dust coating on the bottles.
Becov castle previously served as the residence of the Beaufort-Spontin family before being seized by then-Czechoslovakia after the family was branded as Nazi sympathisers.
Before escaping to Austria, the Beaufort-Spontins concealed their wine collection alongside a reliquary of St. Maurus, believed to contain bones of St John the Baptist.
The discovery came about in 1984 when the family contacted American businessman Danny Douglas for assistance in recovering their hidden valuables. Douglas secretly petitioned authorities on the family’s behalf to retrieve an unspecified object from an undisclosed location.
Following negotiations with officials regarding permits, police eventually determined Douglas’s target location and the nature of the treasure he sought, ultimately leading to the collection’s recovery.
