Courtesy photo "The Billionaire's Vinegar" by Benjamin Wallace.
Courtesy photo "The Billionaire's Vinegar" by Benjamin Wallace.
Over the course of the past few years, there has been one issue that has been publicly forced to the forefront of the wine world. However, this problem is nothing new, as it has been around since fine wine began to garner any sort of premium.
Like any other product, wine has fallen victim to the whims of counterfeit artists worldwide. The real significance here is that we are not talking about $12 CDs or knock-off soccer jerseys being sold outside a stadium in Italy. Rather, we are speaking about bottles of wine that have garnered as much as $175,000 at auction, with the winning bidders being some of the most prominent businessmen of the past century, some which were supposedly owned by one of our most benevolent historical leaders. If you were wondering why I used supposedly, you will soon find out.
Ben Wallace’s spellbinding text “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” primarily focuses on the story of Hardy Rodenstock (real name Meinhard Gorke). Rodenstock was a man with a knack for procuring suspicious, yet exceptionally rare, bottles of wine, including the renowned Jefferson Bottles (1787 Lafitte, now Lafite-Rothschild, bottles that were inscribed with the initials Th.J.). These suspicious Jefferson Bottles, along with countless others, were then sold at auction to numerous bidders. Among these winning bidders was a man named Bill Koch, whose lawsuits and story were a driving factor in this text.
Amongst the potential victims in all of this is famed auctioneer Michael Broadbent, who at the time was in charge of Christie’s Wine Department. His relationship with Hardy Rodenstock is one of the many interesting subplots of this whole drama, and one that has seen a heavy backlash from Broadbent’s people.
I remember back in May 2008 when I first read the book review for “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” just prior to its release. I instantly pre-ordered a copy. Within a week, I was finished with the book and something about this topic really intrigued me. The book hits on some amazing themes of mystery, accountability, history, wealth, greed and, obviously, wine appreciation. The best part is for all of the drama and covert dealings, this book is a true story.
Somehow, my luck has continued, and a couple of weeks back, I had the opportunity to interview Ben Wallace. What he told me was very informative and will help you understand his intentions behind the penning of “The Billionaire’s Vinegar.” Surprisingly enough, the story that unfolded and the events of the past couple of years since the release of his text seems to have been a product of great timing. He began his research and the interviewing process in 2000; however, the actual work on the book began only months before Bill Koch’s team began its research for its upcoming lawsuits against many of the biggest names in the wine industry. By getting in just before Koch’s people, he was able to have the candid interviews without the threat of legal ramifications hanging over the interviewee’s heads.
Wallace is by no means a man with a vendetta, but rather a very good journalist and author who was simply looking for a terrific topic that could capture an audience. His original idea for the book evolved from the movie “The Red Violin.” The story surrounds the perfect violin created back in 1600s Italy and focuses on its history as to how it stood the test of time to find itself on the auction block in Montreal in 1997. From that moment on, Wallace was “searching for his ‘Red Violin,’ ” in the form of a unique bottle of wine.
Wallace has written for a number of different publications in the past, and it was at Philadelphia magazine that his passion for wine seemed to evolve. He was looking to take some wine classes and wanted to expense them, luckily for him, the editor at the time asked him to be their wine writer. It was because of this that he came across one of Jancis Robinson’s books that spoke briefly on the topic of the Jefferson Bottles. Viola! Wallace had found his bottle.
With his muse discovered, Wallace was engulfed with research and interviews in preparation for writing his book. His research led him to a number of places and encounters with significant wine personalities He traveled to Germany on four occasions to interview some of Rodenstock’s closest friends. It was at this point that a common theme began to emerge, no one really knew Hardy Rodenstock! Interview after interview, they all spoke of Rodenstock’s gracious nature when it came to fine wines and how affable he was, but that was it. No one knew Rodenstock the person.
There was, however, one person whose interviews did seem to be guarded. Ralf Frenzel, Rodenstock’s personal sommelier, seemed to be “holding back information,” according to Wallace. This is interesting since Frenzel would be the one closest to the actual wines in question outside of Rodenstock. According to an interview Frenzel gave to European Fine Wine Magazine, Frenzel was “responsible for over 100 of Rodenstock’s renowned tastings.” The interview in Fine did not even mention the controversy surrounding Rodenstock.
I bring up Broadbent’s relationship with Rodenstock for a reason. Ever since this text has been published, Broadbent has been fighting against accusations that were never made. You see, the book brings to light that auctioneers may have turned a blind eye to the growing problem of fine wine counterfeits, much the same way Major League Baseball turned a blind eye to Bonds, Sosa and McGwire.
Even after the libel lawsuit that Random House publishing chose to settle out of court (rather than going through a costly and time consuming court case in the plaintiff-friendly UK), Wallace still feels no ill-will towards Broadbent. Rather, he described him as a “charming and likable man with hubris,” and he enjoyed their series of interviews over the years. In fact, when asked what his greatest wine experience was, he said “it was the bottle of ’95 or ’96 Chateau Musar that I shared with Broadbent over lunch.”
It is with this last quote in mind that I started to formulate what I was going to write today. Here we have an aspiring author who was simply looking to tell an amazing story about the Jefferson Bottles. In fact, what he ended up getting out of it was a book that will go down in wine literary history as one of the most interesting and well written books of all time. Sometimes, the stars do align and in this case, all who read this book will benefit.
Erol Senel, of Merrimack, is the owner of Senel Wine Consulting (www.senelwine.com), which specializes in personal and restaurant wine consulting, as well as the sommelier at Stonehedge Inn & Spa’s Left Bank restaurant. He can be reached at erol@senelwine.com.
