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| The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine | 
 enlarge | Author: Benjamin Wallace
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.27
You Save: $9.68 (39%)
New (43) Used (18) from $12.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 844
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307338770
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.2223
EAN: 9780307338778
ASIN: 0307338770
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Collector's Book June 9, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
The author is like one of the wine collectors he writes about who has to have more than the other guy. Wallace includes every fact he comes across, no matter how tangential.
The book goes on and on with vintages and details and minor characters. Then it ends. As gripping as a Wikipedia article.
If you want a "mesmerizing history of wine," this is the book for you. If you want a compelling detective story, well, wait for the movie. Hollywood will strip it down and sex it up, I'm sure.
 One of the Most Surprising Books I Have Read in a Long Time June 9, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
It's hard to know what to expect from a book, labeled a "mystery," which tells the true story behind the purchase of one bottle of wine. Granted, it was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold. And while I like wine as much as the next guy, there's a limit to how much wine-related information I can digest (or perhaps should digest) as well as to how much interest I can muster for a transaction involving the expenditure of more than $158,000 for a single bottle of wine (what would that be, by the way, in today's dollars and how many people would it feed are questions that come to mind immediately). Notwithstanding my reservations, however, I found this book to be a well-written and well-researched piece of investigative journalism concerning what may well be one of the brashest hoaxes in modern history. It held my interest right to the last page. I was hoping it would go on, but the intrigue surrounding this bottle of wine has not, apparently, seen its last chapter - reality stinks like that sometimes.
The production of wine is indeed a complex business, and Mr. Wallace provides a very interesting overview of certain aspects of it, as well as a fascinating historical discussion of the development of America's wine industry. What I found most riveting, however, was the author's portrayal of the psychological perspective of the serious wine collector and of some of the "experts." It was surprising to learn of the competitiveness and self-indulgence not of the various vineyards involved in the production of some of the finest wines in the world, but of those drinking it (or maybe just displaying it) and selling it. The descriptions of wine-tasting events and the extravagances associated with them gave new meaning to the term "excess", even while making my mouth water with some wonderful decriptions of the wines being served. In the end, it was so difficult to garner sympathy for some of these "victims" that I was surprised to learn that so many of them actually cooperated in the author's investigation!
Suffice it to say that it will probably come as no shock that the very self-indulgence that seems to qualify one as a true "oenophile" -- at least where these old (dare I say antique?) wines are concerned -- may well have set the stage for the major bilking that is played out in the pages of this wonderful book. It is also no wonder that this amazing tale ends, at least for now, in protracted litigation, which as Mr. Wallace describes in great detail, costs drastically more money (to investigate and attempt to prove the fraud) than could ever be recovered from its alleged perpetrators. Apparently this makes sense to someone, but perhaps only someone who would spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a bottle of wine whose provenance could not possibly be proven.
Even if you are not a wine crazed person, this story of greed, excess, fraud, and litigation will make you ponder the priorities of the frightfully rich in a whole new way. And it may even hold a lesson or two for the rabid collectors among us.
In Vino Veritas June 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Thoroughly enjoyable, excellent writing, an excellent read. In fact I read it in one sitting. It's a glimpse into the world of high end oenophilia (or perhaps snobbery), at a level of luxury that only handfuls will ever know. And it's a ripping good mystery to boot. My only complaint is that it peters out a bit at the end, but it is nonfiction, and life will do that sometimes.
The Grifter and His Ultrarich Marks May 28, 2008
39 out of 44 found this review helpful
It's not right to fool people, especially to make money from them. It's still fun, however, to learn about how suckers have gotten swindled, if the suckers aren't you or someone close to you. It's especially fun if the suckers are successful tycoons who are used to having the world and its denizens bow to their wills. It's fun, too, if the suckers are partaking in some particular form of snobbery, like the prestige that comes from buying hugely expensive bottles of wine. When a bottle went in 1985 for $156,000, the world swooned at the presumptuousness, and the press went wild calculating just how many hundreds of dollars each little sip would cost. Twenty years later, the fun is that the bottle was a phony, and the buyers of that particular bottle and of who knows how many others had been taken in by a very smart wine expert who eventually got caught. This is a fun story, told with verve and detail in _The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine_ (Crown) by Benjamin Wallace. Wallace has researched different facets of wine history, so there is a good deal of science and social history in his book, and he has the eye for detail of a good mystery writer (it isn't surprising that this nonfiction book has recently been optioned to be turned into a movie). You don't have to be interested in wine to find this story of human foibles funny and instructive.
The bottle in question was auctioned by Christie's in 1985. It was a 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux, and was presented as having been part of the cellar of the wine enthusiast Thomas Jefferson. It was engraved "1787 Lafitte" (the way they spelled it then) and had the initials "Th.J." Christie's was the most prestigious of auctioneers in the department of fine and historic wines, and it vouched for the authenticity of the bottle. The wine had been found and placed on the market by a German wine dealer named Hardy Rodenstock, who had previously been a pop-band manager. Rodenstock refused to say who sold the wine to him, nor how many other bottles there were. But he was doing a great business in very rare, very old wines, and customers were in those days eager to buy his finds, whether he would reveal their provenance or not. Neither Christie's nor potential buyers took the simple step of checking with the museum staff at Monticello, Jefferson's home, to see if there were any record of such a purchase by him. Jefferson was meticulous, even obsessive, about documenting his purchases of wine and everything else, so there should have been a record. There was none. Rodenstock's silence on where his fine old wines were coming from should not have taken two decades to foster suspicion in some of those who were buying from him, but such suspicions eventually started up. Wallace is exactly right about how the con game was played: "As with all successful cons, the marks and the grifter had been collaborators. One sold the illusion that the others were desperate to buy." Rodenstock made the mistake of selling Jefferson bottles to a litigious Florida tycoon who spent a fortune on investigators and laboratory tests to demonstrate fraud. Wallace cannot end his book with Rodenstock being convicted and sent to jail, but the arguments included in the book seem conclusive. Readers will be eager to hear about further legal news in the case.
There wasn't anything vintners could do in the seventeenth century to make sure that counterfeits didn't show up two centuries later, but Wallace explains that steps are being taken these days to make sure no future Rodenstock can pull the same tricks. Laser-etching of bottles or embossing them with particular marks is one step, as is using watermarked and ultraviolet-tagged labels. Another step is using particularly adhesive glue to affix the label, but this will irritate collectors who like putting labels in their scrapbooks. There will be future wine counterfeiters, but they will have to work harder. And that bottle sold at Christie's in 1985? It was bought by Kip Forbes, under orders from his father Malcolm Forbes. The father was furious that the son had paid so much, but he always had a yen for publicity, and realized that having such a headline-making bottle was just what he needed. He put it on display in a case specially highlighted, and the heat from the light made for just the opposite of a wine cellar. It shrank the cork, which fell in, and even if the wine was fake, it wasn't even wine after that, just the vinegar of this book's title. You couldn't ask for a more fittingly symbolic end to all the selfishness and self-importance that Wallace has illustrated in this fascinating tale.
An Enjoyable Glimpse at a Different World May 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a revealing look at a little known part of the wine world - the collection of incredibly rare wines by the super rich. For them, it is more about competition, history, one-upsmanship and obsession rather than sharing an excellent bottle of wine with friends. The story is populated with interesting European and American characters; collectors, auctioneers, salesmen, historians and scientists who all have a role in the rarefied world of very old and expensive French wine. As is to be expected, the less scrupulous begin to work their way into a world where buyers, some knowledgeable and some ignorant, pay large sums for bottles of uncertain heritage. But the providers of these mysterious bottles push too far and soon several buyers, who have significant resources, start to shine a bright light into the shadowy corners of the wine world.
Wallace does a fine job illuminating this obscure but fascinating club of European aristocracy and new money. The only negative is that the story is quite diffuse; there are many collectors who make an appearance but then drop out of the story. While the anecdotes and stories are uniformly interesting, the story lacks a strong narrative drive or satisfying conclusion (the lawsuits are still ongoing). But these are minor flaws; if you like wine you'll love the book.
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