In a cold, dark cellar in Paris lie some of the world’s finest wines: 12 bottles of Château d’Yquem, a case of Château Margaux and a 1985 bottle of Romanée-Conti, estimated to be worth almost £4,000.

“Don’t touch it,” snapped a broad-shouldered warehouseman as The Times reached for the celebrated burgundy. “If you dropped it, the insurance wouldn’t pay.” His nervousness was understandable, for this is the first time in history that a French pawnbroker has accepted wine as a security against loans for its customers.

The initiative was launched by Crédit Municipal de Paris, the council pawnshop, last week. Within 48 hours, it had received more than 200 bottles with a total value of €45,000 (£35,000).

“We’re surprised to see how many people are doing this,” said Bernard Candiard, the chief executive, as he fondled a bottle of Bollinger champagne worth about €1,000. “Our wine expert is jubilant.”

Mr Candiard said that he had allowed Parisians to pawn wine because it was among their strongest assets, with the best-known clarets and burgundies often gaining value over time.

“If you have a good bottle, its price will not go down and may even go up.”

He added that he hoped to attract customers who would be loath to pawn objects usually brought to Crédit Municipal, such as jewellery, watches, paintings and fur coats.

“It’s a lot more discreet to take a few bottles of wine out of your cellar than to take a painting off the wall or a collar off your wife. The neighbours and the mother-in-law won’t notice.”

Among the Parisians who swooped on the offer was a doctor who brought €17,000 worth of bottles, including a 1961 Pétrus, considered by many experts to be one of the best wines ever made. In Britain, it sells for about £6,000, according to internet wine sites. He was followed by a pensioner with six bottles of Pomerol in a plastic bag, with a total value of €240. She borrowed €120.

Under the rules at Crédit Municipal, which is seen in France as a public service far removed from the Dickensian image of a British pawnshop, customers can take out a 12-month loan equivalent to half the value of the objects they leave.

Mr Candiard is pledging to keep up to 90,000 bottles in ideal conditions until their owners pay back the sums borrowed and reclaim their nectar.

Although some wine-lovers may be reluctant to move their best vintages, which travel less well than they age, Crédit Municipal is confident of overcoming any qualms. Experts say that if wine is well packed, transported in moderate temperatures and left to settle for several days after the journey, it regains all its qualities. But many of the oldest are never consumed, Mr Candiard says. Instead, they are kept as a family heirloom.

The cellars under the 1777 Crédit Municipal building have 80 per cent humidity, a constant temperature of between 12-13C and have been fitted with low-intensity light bulbs.

They could soon be full, to judge by the flow of Parisians to the institution known as Ma Tante (My Aunt) after the Prince of Joinville pawned his watch in the 1830s and told Queen Maria Amalia, his mother, that he had forgotten it, chez ma tante.

“It’s like the accident and emergency department here,” Mr Candiard said as he walked through a teeming mass of customers queuing at 21 counters for their objects to be valued.

Over the past five years, the number of Parisians using the pawnshop has increased by 35 per cent. A majority are women. “But one of our hopes with the wine is that more men will start using us as well,” Mr Candiard said. “I’m sure there’s a lot of demand that we could meet.”

In hock

— About £400 million a year is loaned by Britain’s 800 pawnbrokers

— Four customers offered Chris Smith, a Norfolk pawnbroker, their gold teeth. He gave them between £10 and £20, depending on weight

— Herbert Brown, a pawnbroker in Leeds, accepted a pledge for a canary in its cage

— Another pledge included the deeds to a Scottish island, which transpired to have sunk 150 years previously

Sources: National Pawnbrokers Association, www.herbertbrown.co.uk

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