Chirac's Town Hall Wine Collection to Go Under the Hammer

He is partial to Corona beer and a steaming plate of tête de veau. But the sophisticated tastes of the famously indulgent French president Jacques Chirac will be available for all to sample later this month when around £400,000 of wine from his cellar at Paris town hall will be auctioned.

More than 4,000 bottles will go under the hammer, most dating back to Mr Chirac's time as mayor of Paris when the best "grands crus" were served at lavish receptions for international dignitaries and film stars. Mr Chirac was mayor from 1977 to 1995, a period noted for corruption scandals, but also for the vast quantity of food and drink imbibed at taxpayers' expense. In 2002 an auditor's report leaked to the press found that Mr Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, once spent £170,000 on food in one year. Their total personal food bill for one eight-year period was £1.4m.

Now the current socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, has opened up Mr Chirac's old wine-cellars under Paris's picturesque town hall and brought in the auditors. When specialists uncovered the prestigious collection of aged bordeaux and some of the best wines and champagne available in France, Mr Delanoë ordered most of them be sold and the money ploughed back into public funds.

He argued that if the River Seine flooded the cellars, the wines would be irreparably damaged. Many had matured well and now needed to be drunk before deteriorating, but they had grown so much in value they now were unlikely to be served by the town hall. While the mayor still hosts 500 receptions a year, only around 15,000 bottles of alcohol are knocked back each year, compared with more than 28,000 six years ago.

Nicknamed "Fort Knox" and accessible only to a select few, the cellar includes 191 bottles of 1976 Krug champagne, and several bottles of Château Pétrus, now worth between €500 (£336) and €1,500 each.

"This is an exceptional collection," said Claude Maratier, the wine expert in charge of the sale. "The wines are in excellent condition and many are the best vintages from the last 30 years." But Bernard Bled, the former town hall official who lovingly collected the wines for Mr Chirac and the later mayor Jean Tiberi, said he was pained to learn that thousands of the bottles had never been drunk. "I started in 1975 and built up the collection over 30 years, pouring my personality into it. It was essential for us to offer the best wine to the big international personalities we hosted in Paris. This wine cellar is about prestige, it's a part of French heritage, a way of showing visitors the best of France.

He added: "I'm sad to see it dispersed like this, it was a great collection meant to be drunk, not saved. It's a shame it hasn't all been tasted and presented at functions. Maybe the town hall should have been a little less niggardly and parsimonious about what they served."