Have a taste for expensive things? How much would you be willing to part with to indulge in what is considered the most expensive bottle of wine ever produced?

Try $168,000.

That was the list price on a bottle tentatively sold Thursday at the LCBO’s Summerhill location.

“I can’t confirm it at the moment because we are finalizing the transaction,” Heather MacGregor, media relations co-ordinator for the LCBO, said Thursday afternoon. “I imagine there are a few T’s to be crossed and I’s to be dotted.”

The Penfolds Ampoule is a limited-edition Australian wine, one of only 12 handmade bottles ever produced.

Placed inside what can only be described as an elongated spinning-top, the ampoule sits suspended inside a hand-blown plumb-bob made of transparent grey glass, within a metre-high cabinet made of Australian eucalyptus wood.

In other words, the wine is bottled inside a 750-millimetre vial usually used to preserve pharmaceuticals that require protection from the air.

Described as a weighty red with intense blackcurrant, dark chocolate and licorice aromas, the 2004 Kalimna Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon is made from what is believed to be the world’s oldest continuously producing cabernet sauvignon vineyard.

This is the third bottle sold. The first was bought by Wong Wing Chee, of Hong Kong’s Dragon Seal Restaurant, where it’s kept behind bulletproof glass. A second went to an anonymous buyer in Singapore.

The Toronto bottle was kept in an airtight cabinet at the Summerhill store and was to be displayed only until the end of the month, before moving on if it went unsold.

Along with the enormous pricetag, the buyer, expected to remain anonymous, can also expect a visit by a senior member of the Penfolds winemaking team to personally attend a special opening ceremony.

According to the company’s website, the winemaker will travel to the destination of choice, where the ampoule will be ceremoniously removed from its glass plumb-bob casing and opened using a specially designed opener.