** I published this piece 3 years ago and I thought it was worth sharing again. Enjoy! Darlene
I love this story! As most of you are aware, I am a red wine drinker. I love wine, and I love all the nuances that go along with a particular bottle of wine. I love to know when and where the grapes were picked, how it was aged, etc. A few years back, I even took a vacation to the Napa Valley in California, and spent a week visiting vinyards and asking lots of questions. By far my best vacation, and I plan to go back one day.
One evening as I was enjoying a particular good glass of wine, I wondered about the ‘Most Expensive Wine’ ever sold. I come to find out it was in 1985, when Malcome Forbes paid $156,000 for a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafitte Bordeaux, believed to have been in the wine cellar of Thomas Jefferson. (The 3rd President of the United States and the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence). The sale of this bottle of wine was the subject of a book by Benjamin Wallace called ‘The Billionaire’s Vinegar”. You see, the wine is undrinkable. It is basically vinegar in a bottle. But still, it is believed to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson at one point.
The discoverer of the bottle was Hardy Rodenstock, a pop-band manager turned wine collector with a knack for finding extremely old and exquisite wines. But rumors about the bottle soon arose. Why wouldn’t Rodenstock reveal the exact location where it had been found? Was it part of a smuggled Nazi hoard? Or did his reticence conceal an even darker secret? This is what the book is about, and I will definitely be adding it to my collection.
Enjoy the fermented grape!
Darlene
Wine-It’s Just My Opinion 