Here’s something to think about next time you come across that rare $20 a bottle (usually 750ml) bottle of beer in the store.

The New York Sun reports that Upward Spiral Is Seen In Wine Auction Market:

For the first half of the year, for example, Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945 sold for an average of $63,000 a case, according to the Wine Spectator Auction Index. At the Acker Auction, however, a casually dressed man with a shaved head paid a startling $155,350 for the 12 bottles of lot 523 — a 69% increase over the 2006 first-half average. Barely a minute later, the same paddle also won lot 524, a case of six magnums (double size bottles) of the same wine. It also went for $155,350 (including a buyer’s premium of 19.5%). The next day, at Aulden Cellars–Sotheby’s New York sale, a case of Mouton-Rothschild 1945 sold for $161,325. That price, far beyond the range of most wine-buying mortals, seemed like a bargain compared to the all-time high prices fetched for the wine at the Christie’s Los Angeles auction in late September. There, a case of Mouton-Rothschild 1945 sold for $290,000, while a case of magnums of the same wine reached $345,000.

The good news, the story reports, is that the market has polarized and bargains are to be had at less than $500 a lot.

We feel better already.