A few bottles from the cellars of a woman once dubbed the "richest little girl in the world" will be up for auction next month at Christie’s in New York.

    Each of the four lots of three bottles of 1929 Chateau d'Yquem, which have a pre-sale estimate of between $15,000 and $24,000 for the Dec 9 auction, come from the cellars of the late U.S. heiress Doris Duke.

    Born in 1912 newspapers christened her "the richest little girl in the world." She was the only child of U.S. tobacco baron James Duke. Her father, who founded both Duke Energy and the American Tobacco Company, today known as Fortune Brands, died in 1925 and left the bulk of his estate, an estimated $100 million, to his then-12-year-old daughter.

    But while her life is the stuff of books and movies - two husbands, numerous lovers, and a butler accused of killing her - it may also perhaps be proof that money can't buy happiness.

    Despite gaining a reputation as a philanthropist and art collector and acquiring estates in Hawaii, Newport, Rhode Island, Beverly Hills, California, Somerset County, New Jersey and Park Avenue in New York City, she intimated to a journalist that her fortune was in some ways an obstacle to happiness.

    "All that money is a problem sometimes. It happens every time. After I've gone out with a man a few times, he starts to tell how much he loves me. But how can I know if he really means it? How can I ever be sure?" she told an American journalist over a glass of wine at Rome's Hassler Hotel in 1945, the New York Times said in her obituary.

    But while she may not have found lasting love, she was quite a businesswoman. At the time of her death in 1993, her estate was estimated to be worth $1.2 billion.

    Prosecutors decided not to charge her butler, who became a millionaire after Duke's death, and the bulk of her estate went to the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which funds the arts, education, environmental efforts and other causes.