Wine news: El Bulli auctions cellar; Hitler labels spark uproar

Remember El Bulli, the tiny restaurant in Spanish Catalonia that for years was considered the best eatery in the world? The one that seated only a few thousand diners a season but got millions of reservation requests? The place that produced various foams, jellies and other wonders of molecular gastronomy?

When the esteemed establishment shut down last summer, foodies around the globe mourned. But now, the 10,000-bottle wine cellar used to supplement chef Ferran Adria’s sumptuous cuisine is being auctioned off by Sotheby’s.

As a whole, the collection could garner high six figures. The list, featuring wines from France, Spain, California and elsewhere, is 139 pages long and available in whole on the Eater blog.

Adria, meanwhile, is preparing to launch his El Bulli Foundation – an institution for gastronomical brainstorming – in 2014.

In another European country, wine is also making waves, but for far less palatable reasons.

American tourists traveling in Italy are complaining about supermarkets stocking bottles of vino whose labels feature Adolf Hitler.

One bottle features the dictator performing the Nazi salute, according to the Telegraph. Another is emblazoned with “Mein Kampf,” the title of a book by Hitler. A third was labeled “Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer,” which translates as “one people, one empire, one Fuhrer.”

Local officials said they were looking into the bottles.

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