Rich white guys: They’re just like us! …
…except their QVC is called Christie’s.
Maybe we don’t all shop QVC, but we’ve all been taken by a deal that seemed to good to be true. But instead of a crappy $30 cubic zirconium ring that turns your finger green, this is a story about a rich guy who paid $156,000 too much for a bottle of wine. The Billionaire’s Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace ($24.95 Crown) is not just a great story about wine, it’s like a really, really great New Yorker article that goes on for 300 extra pages.
The scene: The year was 1985. The venerable Christie’s auction house (the epicenter for old, rare, drool-worthy wines in the world) had procured a most unusual bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux. The grand sir of priceless vino himself and Christie’s auctioneer, Michael Broadbent oversaw the investigation into the authenticity of the bottle before bringing it to auction. Hardly given by a charlatan, the item was presented by a well-known collector by the name of Hardy Rodenstock (you can’t make names like that up) who had sourced many bottles of incredibly rare, highly desirable wines. Writer Wallace sets the scene in the book with tension and a dash of incredulity, detailing the auction that saw the allegedly priceless bottle sold for a record sum to Kip Forbes, son of billionaire publisher Malcom and hence the name of the book.
As if a 1787 Chateau Lafite up for auction wasn’t sexy enough, on this particular bottle a mysterious inscription (Th. J) was noted and attributed to Thomas Jefferson. Now maybe I’m just too poor for my own good, but that right there would have me shouting from the peanut gallery, “You crazy Mr. Forbes, don’t do it!” The world of rarified wines is truly as strange as any pastime that manifests into full-blown fetish, be it Star Trek, baseball cards, beanie babies, or expensive art. (Wanna bet? William Shatner’s kidney stone sold to a collector for $75,000. ) Like any market, forgeries are possible. Wallace examines the world of liquid auctions, and its components, much like you’d pick apart a fine wine. What unfolds is a fantastic tale much greater than the auction itself, like the introduction of a Bill Koch, another rich guy who would outspend Kip Forbes’ purchase trying to debunk Hardy Rodenstock’s find.
Benjamin Wallace’s writing style shows his magazine past, and since reading this book I have gathered everything I can from him. Wallace has a way with the declarative sentence that allows the reader to fully imagine the scene, without over sharing. Wallace doesn’t have to, because the characters of this true tale are so rich they need no embellishment; they are already the stuff of great fiction. Greater still that they all actually exist. Wallace also has a way of describing a character through action, as maybe only an also journalist can, that leaves the judgment up to you. He likes his characters, and he likes writing about them. I only wish (and I bet he does too) that they’d reunite for another ridiculous adventure. Oh…give it time.
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:00 am
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