Paris mayor auctions off wine from Chirac-era cellar

Before he was elected president of France, Jacques Chirac was the mayor of Paris. While mayor, the connoisseur of fine wine built up quite an impressive wine cellar--presumably at taxpayer expense. But now, the current mayor, a socialist, is auctioning off some of that wine to benefit the treasury of the City of Lights.

From AFP:

Paris City Hall put thousands of bottles from its world-class wine cellar, dating from Jacques Chirac's tenure as mayor, under the hammer, in an auction set to draw wine buffs from around the globe.

Some 5,000 bottles from the city's 7,000-strong hospitality cellar -- including a dozen Chateau Petrus Bordeaux wines from 1990 expected to fetch up to 2,500 euros (3,150 dollars) apiece -- were to be sold to the highest bidder.

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The Socialist mayor filed suit in 2003 over the allegedly exorbitant entertaining expenses incurred under (Chirac's) tenure, but the country's highest court of appeal threw out the case last year under the statute of limitations.

An audit revealed that Chirac and his wife Bernadette spent more than two million euros on dinners and receptions at the Hotel de Ville between 1987 and 1995, when he stepped down to become president.

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