The Billionaire's Vinegar

Although I love food, that love does not extend to wine. I can manage a sickly sweet dessert wine or a glass of champagne every now and then, but the rest of it tastes like gasoline to me. I couldn't tell the difference between a Lafite and a Three Buck Chuck. I've tried to learn to like it, or at least be able to appreciate why other people like it, but it eludes me. So I find it unbelievable that someone would pay thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of dollars on a bottle of wine! But people do. The most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction was a 1787 Chateau Lafite that was said to have been owned by Thomas Jefferson. The bottle was bought by the Forbes family for $156,000.

This confounds me for so many reasons. First, if you pay that much money for a bottle of wine, do you drink it or not? If you drink it, you've spent $156,000 on something that you enjoy for maybe an hour. If you don't drink it, then you're a tool for having such an amazing bottle of wine just collecting dust in your cellar. And if you wanted it simply for the historical value of the bottle, what does it matter that there is wine in it or not?

Second, if you drink it, how on earth could a 200+ year old anything taste good? I let a bottle of wine sit for several months once and then tried to drink it. It was like rotten vinegar. True, this was some cheap bottle from the grocery store and not a Lafite, but I still don't think something that old, regardless of it's quality, could still be drinkable. I would be skeptical if it did taste good. And if it doesn't taste good, you've spent $156,000 on something that tastes terrible.

Third, how do you know it's truly a 200 year old wine? Does anyone really know what a 200 year old wine should taste like? That is the question behind Benjamin Wallace's The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine. From the very beginning, the authenticity of this bottle of wine was questioned. The bottle was "found" by German wine collector, Hardy Rodenstock, walled up in the basement of a Paris home. Rodenstock was very secretive about the exact location of the house and how many bottles had been found. If the bottle was authentic, this was an amazing find. Christie's examined the bottle and determined it to be the real thing, which created a frenzy among wine collectors. Aside from this bottle, Rodenstock privately sold other Jefferson bottles, as well as other rare, old wines. When many respected collectors started questioning the authenticity of Rodenstock's wines, one of his clients began an investigation. I love stories about forgery-art, documents, money, etc. I think it's fascinating the lengths forgers go to, and how experts can tell if something is fake. The science behind the tests is also amazing. I learned more about old wine and wine collectors than I ever wanted to know, but this was a very interesting book. A good read for fans of books like Brian Innes' Fakes and Forgeries or Frank Abagnale's memoir, Catch Me If You Can. The only disappointment is that there really is no justice or resolution. Although the mystery is solved, the bad guy, at least for now, gets away.