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Every year, the county gambles on bringing high-end French wine home, and it almost always pays off.

For the past decade, the county's Department of Liquor Control has been purchasing some of the world's best wine from the famed Bordeaux hills and selling it at county liquor stores at a discount, said Diane Wurdeman, the retail operations manager for the DLC.

"We want to provide wine for all the people that want nice Bordeaux at reasonable prices," she said.

The county speculates by buying a certain amount before the wine is even bottled. This allows them to buy more at a cheaper price, Wurdeman said, and get their hands on some of the world's rarest and highest-rated wines.

This year's specialty is the 2005 vintage Bordeaux wines. Without investing in futures, it would have been impossible to get the Chateau Margaux Margaux, one of the world's most expensive Bordeaux wines, sold at $1,300 a bottle, and very difficult to obtain any Bordeaux vintage wines above $40, she said.

But, like all trading, there is a slight risk involved. The weather conditions could be less than ideal, for example, or a certain grape could have a bad growing year.

"There have been times where the years have not turned out to be fabulous and we'd wind up reducing prices more than we'd hoped," Wurdeman said.

But George Griffin, the director of liquor control, said the county has never actually lost money on the speculation. From a base $400,000 acquisition price, the county sells the wines at 35 percent to 60 percent profit, he said. Sometimes it just takes longer to sell all of the wines.

But they almost always sell out.

"The people who like Bordeaux buy them," he said.

Gus Montes de Oca, the director of operations for liquor control, said this year's exceptional quality of Bordeaux wines has almost doubled what the county usually spends and receives on futures. This year, the county expects a $250,000 profit, he said.

While county liquor stores have some of these wines selling for more than $1,000, don't be intimidated —they're also stocked with affordable Bordeaux ranging from $15 to $40 a bottle.

About 1,500 cases, at 12 bottles per case, were distributed throughout stores in the county, Wurdeman said.

The wines generally sell well, said Josh Asress, the manager for the Silver Spring county liquor store, located at 8715 Colesville Road. Of the 15 cases he gets, the lower-tier Bordeaux will easily sell out within a year, he said. And as the demographics in Silver Spring change, there's a growing demand for more refined wine such as the $40-and-above Bordeaux, he said.

But the $1,300 bottles?

"We don't sell much of it," he said.

Nor do they receive much of it. East county isn't the best place to go for high-end wines, said managers at the stores at 11407 Georgia Ave. in Wheaton and 11239 New Hampshire Ave. in White Oak. Those areas tend to sell more liquor than wine, they said.

The Potomac store, at 10132 River Road, receives most of the "really, really hot stuff," Wurdeman said.

Manager Anna-Maria Joyner said she'll sell out of most of her $200-and-under bottles by the end of the year. One customer bought two cases of the $1,300 Margaux, she said.

But someone who splurges on a nice-tasting French wine shouldn't expect to drink it right away, Joyner and Wurdeman pointed out.

While the cheaper ones under $20 will probably be robust enough to drink right away, the more expensive bottles should sit in a cellar for as long as a decade, Wurdeman said.

Spiro Gioldasis, the general manager of Mrs. K's Toll House on Colesville Road in Silver Spring, said he has a $15,000 budget for wine and always spends some of it on the county's futures. The 20 cases of $70 vintage Bordeaux he purchased this year have sold out in just a few weeks.

"Everybody knew the 2005 was a great year. I made a mistake and I didn't buy as much as I should have," he said.

But Gioldasis didn't purchase the $1,000 wines because "they're over priced."

No matter, because they're selling quickly, said Montes de Oca of liquor control. Of the five cases of the $1,300 Margaux imported from France, four have sold already.

"It's been pretty good for us," he said.