Provenance

Yesterday I posted a review of Benamin Wallace’s book, The Billionaire's Vinegar. It’s an excellent book and I highly recommend it even for those who know little or nothing about wine.

What struck me from reading this book is how little regard there is to the provenance of the old bottles that are purchased by wine collectors. Now I suppose some of them buy the wines merely as trophies, but as I have said before, I feel wine is made for drinking. Tasting the contents would be the thrill for me of acquiring something old and/or rare, not placing it under a spotlight or making sure everyone knew I had bragging rights to the wine.

But given how wine changes hands and there are so many hands involved, as well as the fact that people are basically greedy and will do anything for money, how can you really be sure that the old wine you pay so much money for is any good? And that it is authentic?

I guess the older the wine, the bigger the gamble. You just have to take that chance, although myself, I doubt that I would be very trusting of the whole process without having supporting documentation of the highest integrity.

And who’s to say what you are tasting is even the real thing? Unless we have extensive tasting experience and a supreme confidence in our own tasting abilities, how do we know what one of these old treasures is supposed to taste like? Would we be able to detect a forgery?

Of course, I’m thinking about this from the perspective of someone who could never afford to dabble in the world of fine wine collecting. My own collection averages under $20 per bottle and I have to think long and hard whenever a bottle over $25 or $30 tempts me. I could never bring myself to spend thousands of dollars on a bottle of wine given the risk of its having gone south, or the wine inside not being what it is supposed to be.

But when I run across a $10 bottle of wine that I’ve never heard of that looks tempting, that’s a whole different story. I take the risk, buy the wine, and if it turns out to be a lemon, well, chalk it up to experience. It’s no big dent on my pocketbook.

Well looking at it from the perspective of the rich folks who engage in collecting expensive wines, spending a few thousand dollars in hopes of landing a great bottle of wine is probably no different than my own poor self pulling out a ten-spot for that bottle on the shelf with a question mark on it.

And as for whether the wine is genuine or not, rich or poor we’re all the same. If we want to believe something, we’ll make ourselves believe it.

The Billionaire's Vinegar - A Review

Most, if not all of you reading this blog are aware of the most expensive bottle of wine ever purchased: the 1787 Lafite, supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson, that was purchased at a 1985 Christie’s auction for the incredible sum of 105,000 British pounds (roughly $156,000 U.S.). And most of you are probably more aware than me regarding the account of the controversy that developed over the authenticity of this bottle, as well as others from the same collection that apparently belonged to the ex-president who was also known as a wine connoisseur.

These bottles were discovered by a fellow named Hardy Rodenstock. It seems that Rodenstock had a knack for sniffing out very rare and very old wines, making quite the name for himself in the wine world for doing so, while getting rich in the process.

Rodenstock never revealed any details of his discoveries, however. It was this lack of information combined with suspicions that arose among parties who purchased the wines and those who investigated them that created rumors that these and other bottles found and subsequently sold by Rodenstock were fakes.

You can read articles on Wikipedia and The New Yorker that present good synopses of the events surrounding the controversy that still exists today. And/or you can read a more elaborate account in the form of Benjamin Wallace’s new book, The Billionaire’s Vinegar - The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine.

This was the most fascinating book I’ve read in a long time. My copy was an advance, uncorrected proof edition supplied by the publisher but I’m sure the final edition is substantially the same.

From the beginning Wallace had me eagerly turning the pages to see how this mystery would unravel.

Along the way we are introduced to an interesting cast of characters: the well-known wine critics, the very rich who could afford to purchase these rare old bottles, those who conducted investigations to ferret out the truth behind the bottles, Bordeaux chateau owners and principals, and the man behind the bottles, Rodenstock himself.

It’s all put together smoothly with an engaging writing style that ensures there’s never a dull moment. Wallace did a great job of building up the suspense, starting with the auctioning of the famous bottle and continuing with the increasing suspicions of various parties regarding the authenticity of that and other bottles discovered and sold by Rodenstock, and what was done to investigate that authenticity (or lack thereof).

About the price Forbes paid for the wine: $156,000. That’s an exorbitant sum of money, but let’s put that into perspective in terms of what it means to someone who is a billionaire. That represents .000156 of $1,000,000,000. Let’s compare that against a more “normal” sum of money that a person might have or earn, such as $50,000. .000156 of $50,000 is $7.80. So a billionaire purchasing a bottle of wine for $156,000 is relatively speaking, like a more “average” person spending $7.80 on a bottle of wine. Heck, drop in the bucket! Even a ‘two-buck chuck’ wine to a billionaire would then be a $40,000 bottle of wine. Peanuts!

I write pretty lame book reviews but let me just say that the book rates a no-brainer two thumbs up from me. I doubt that you will be disappointed; it’s fascinating! Here is the link to the product page at Amazon.com if you are interested: The Billionaire's Vinegar

Cal Wine Czar Issues Wine Stimulus Checks

California Wine Czar Bill Clinton today announced his own version of the recently enacted Economic Stimulus Plan.

"I think it is great," said the former president and now Wine Czar for the state of California, ".. that citizens and non-citizens alike are getting up to $600 to put back into revitalizing our slumping economy. I would like to do something similar for California."

A reporter asked Clinton if this inferred that wine sales are slumping in the state.

"Oh, not at all," replied Clinton. "Wine sales are doing fine. But votes for Hillary seem to have taken a downward turn and that's not good. That is why I have introduced my Vote Stimulus Package. It's time to reverse this slump and put the right person into the White House."

A spokesperson for the Wine Czar outlined the plan, which is quite simple. Buy any California wine that has a picture of Hillary Clinton on it. Soak off the label and send it with a sworn affidavit that you will vote for her when she runs against John McCain after storming her way through the Democratic National Convention and seizes the nomination. A wine stimulus check in the amount of $50 will be sent to the person submitting these items.

Clinton was asked what happens in the event Obama wins the nomination instead of Hillary, and also asked if they were really going to rely on someone's word about who they voted for, when there is no way to verify that.

"Look, consider this the same as a rebate check," answered Clinton. "Does anyone really get back rebate checks? Notice on the Hillary label it says to allow 8-10 months for the stimulus check to appear. Now that could actually mean from the time Hillary is elected, or sworn in, or for her 2nd term, or whenever. We'll deal with actually having to cough up the money when the time comes. You seem to forget I was known as the 'Teflon President.'"

***

Well as you can probably tell from the above that I was dry on ideas today. Anyway, I did get my $600 check the other day and did I go spend it on something wine-related? Nope! Instead I got a couple of toys from Amazon.com (see above picture): A Flip Video Ultra Camcorder and a Zoom H2 Digital Recorder.

I guess these could become wine-related, such as using the camcorder to do video reviews a la Gary Vaynerchuk, or use the digital recorder for tasting notes. But probably not.. they're just both a lot of fun to play around with! So that's today's semi-wine-related blog post.

2005 Twisted Oak %@#$!

Also known informally as "Potty Mouth White," this wine is a blend of 58% Roussanne and 42% Marsanne.

I have to say that I was making some faces upon my first sip, as in, I don't really like this. A reviewer on Cellar Tracker likened this wine to "stale peanut brittle" and I was thinking that's probably a pretty apt description.

So I let it sit there for a while. As the wine warmed up and got some air, it improved. It improved a lot. The key to drinking this wine, at least to me at this moment in time in the wine's development, is to let it warm to room temperature, as though it were a red wine. Under that condition, here are my impressions:

I thought the aromas were like nuts and caramel, but I was also reminded of pastries from Solvang (for those who are unfamiliar with Solvang, it is a small Danish town just north of Santa Barbara where you can buy some really good Danish pastries), both the fruit topping and the pastry itself.

On the palate it got even more interesting. Rich and even oily at times, there were buttery peaches, popcorn, butterscotch, slate, caramel, smoked meat, and a streak of lemon. And they all got along with each other and weren't talking potty mouth to one another! The wine had a fat, long finish.

If you're looking for a crisp, refreshing wine, look elsewhere. As it says on the Twisted Oak site, this is "almost like a red wine." It's rich, full-bodied, and full of complex flavors. This bottle came from WineQ and cost $23.99, although right now you can grab it direct from Twisted Oak for $18.00. At $23.99 it is worth it, and of course at $18.00 even better, although you can get free shipping from WineQ if you join their club. I thought the url for this wine on WineQ was pretty funny:

http://www.wineq.com/wine/twisted-2005-cuss -- "cuss" as in potty mouth or %@#$!

A big wine like this needs a fitting YouTube music video. If you can't see the video below, please click here for the musical accompaniment for the wine.

Here is the link to the Amazon.com product page for the CD: Led Zeppelin II

Practical Uses for Old Wine

I’m in the middle of reading Benjamin Wallace’s newly-released book, The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine. The bottle referred to in the title is the 1787 Lafite Rothschild, supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson, that sold for a record price of $156,000 at a 1985 Christie’s Auction.

So far it is fascinating and I plan to do a full review of the book as soon as I am entirely finished (which ought to be soon).

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to taste really old wines. The thought of sampling a wine from the 18th century is mind-boggling. I would think that wines that had any sort of age on them, much less 200 years, would be fragile, very much at the mercy of the environment they were in.

Yet it sounds to me like these old treasures that are put up for auction are not handled very well. They may have been resting peacefully in someone’s cellar for eons, but when discovered and placed in the sales process, it seems they are subjected to less-than-ideal temperatures and lighting conditions. Wouldn’t you think the sellers and purchasers of such expensive items would take steps to insure a temperature-controlled journey for the wines from discovery to final destination? Why would I want to spend thousands of dollars on something that had not been handled properly?

Then on the other hand, I guess many collectors buy these wines for trophies. My two cents is, a wine is to drink. Why buy a bottle of wine just to put under a spotlight? Well I know why some people do it, but to me that’s a shame. No matter how expensive a wine may be, the thrill is in drinking it, not in looking at it or enjoying bragging rights to it.

Anyway, so far the book is a real page-turner (especially since I don’t know the real story behind this bottle) but I keep going back to thoughts about what a shame it is to buy a bottle of wine and not enjoy it by drinking what is inside.