Photo illustration
Yesterday, the Jakarta Police did another one of their regular rounds of raids throughout the city, meant to pick up preman (thugs) and other petty criminals in the capital. However, this time they found something far rarer than the usual round-up of small-time crooks.
While looking for illegal alcohol, a raid in Depok turned up a bottle of wine that police say was manufactured in the year 1900.
“That’s correct, there was an old bottle of liquor seized from a stall in Depok,” said the head of public relations for the Jakarta Police, Commissioner Martinus Sitompul, as quoted by Kompas.
Police say the wine bottle is wrapped in a label with the year 1900 on it. It’s certainly possible that the police got it wrong, or that the bottle does have the numbers 1900 on it but that is not the vintage year.
But if it was in fact a bottle of wine from 1900, it could potentially be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. For example, a bottle of 1900 Chateau d’Yquem from Sauternes, France is worth about $111,000.
Besides the rare wine find, police also seized hundreds of bottles of alcohol as well as machetes, swords and guns while arresting 368 preman in total.
