Wine Blog » Bottle Of Wine

The Heartbreak Grape: A California Winemaker’s Search for the Perfect Pinot Noir

Wineguy — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:00:48 +0000

The Heartbreak Grape: A California Winemaker’s Search for the Perfect Pinot Noir
Customer Review: This is “A River Runs Through It” for wine lovers….
What “A River Runs Through It” is to flyfishermen everywhere, “The Heartbreak Grape” is to viticulturists, winemakers and wine lovers. Simply put, it captures the entire winemaking experience clearly and poetically.

The book begins in the golden hills of California, specifically in the cellar of the Calera Wine Company. Shortly thereafter it flashes back to a cozy December evening when South African Marq de Villiers attended a dinner party at Mount Vernon, New York. A cork was pulled by an unnamed host and wine was served without comment.

“I remember that something struck me about its clarity, a brilliant red, like rubies under fire, and though my memory is probably colored by the warmth of the setting, I know I felt there was something…unusual…about it.” The wine is Calera Jensen Mount Harlan Pinot Noir, 1987. The author continues by “…dipping my nose into the glass and inhaling slowly, then taking a small sip. It was rich and complex, with a maddening hint of chocolate and violets. I groped for descriptives, as wine people do, without much luck.”

What then follows is quite extraordinary. The author embarks on a journey west to California to discover how this exceptional bottle of wine came to be. But it is not just the story of a particular wine, it is the story of a particular grape, of a particular winemaker, of a particular way of making wine, of interventionist politics, of bureaucracies and critics and complex economics…. It is a broad canvas painted from a rich palette, and in the end the reader is delivered as the final arbiter of the art.

This is a fun book to read. It is both revealing and irreverent. From the primogeniture system in Bordeaux to the endless subdivision of land in Burgundy, de Villiers slices through the layers of tradition and bureaucracy to find the wisdom and practices that have resulted in some of the finest wines the world has ever known. To this stage set Josh Jensen, a young American student who had only recently decided he really enjoyed wine. He travels to where the best wines are made, and begins his education by picking grapes. He hangs around the wineries and translates for non-French-speaking visitors. In the end, he learns the Burgundian style of winemaking and takes it back to the United States, where he finds himself at odds with the then prevailing high-tech methods taught at UC-Davis. What ensures is a 15-year struggle to find the right soil in the right setting to grow the right crop so he could make the right wine from the most fickle of wine grapes, the Pinot Noir–the heartbreak grape. The proof of his success is evidenced not only in the French delegations sent over to find out how he did it, but also–no, especially–in the wine itself.

If you grow a few grapes, make some homemade wine, or simply love to drink the stuff, you’ll enjoy this book.

Customer Review: A stylish and dramatic tale about a man and his grape.
‘The Heartbreak Grape’ offers an intelligent and amusing look into the trials and tribulations surrounding one man’s efforts to produce a domestic wine equivalent to the best Red Burgundies. Mr. de Villiers writes with wit and style, and his engaging commentary provides a sense of drama to the story. Unfortunately, Mr. de Villiers suffers the fate of many who try to decipher the egos, expectations, and experiences of those involved with the complex world of wine. Factual errors abound, ranging from the trivial (mistaking “sulfur dioxide” for “sodium dioxide”) to the more disconcerting (as in Mr. de Villiers obvious mis-understandings about the role that science has played in assisting those involved in the production of fine wines). Too, his tendency to indulge in adulatory statements and his willingness to believe all that his protagonists tell him cause the book to, at times, read more like a PR publication than a reasoned view of wine production. In the final analysis, though, the sheer joy, excitement, and obsessiveness of the epic journey of Mr. Josh Jensen and his Pinot noir vines makes for tasty reading.

Best Wine – One Hundred & One Beautiful Towns in Italy: Food and Wine (101 Towns)

Wineguy — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:00:18 +0000

Analyzing the Global Wine Industry – Market Research Report – new market research report
This business also includes bonded wine cellars which are engaged in blending wines. Wine has a rich history dating back to around 6000 BC and is thought to have originated in areas now within the borders of Georgia and Iran. Wine probably appeared in

One Hundred & One Beautiful Towns in Italy: Food and Wine (101 Towns)
More than any other country in the world, it is Italy that we turn to for gastronomic inspiration. 101 Beautiful Towns of Italy: Food and Wine takes readers along on a one-of-a-kind tour through the tantalizing tastes of Italy’s varied landscape to explore hilltop and seaside towns, where the flavors of Italy scent the air, a good meal is considered the highest form of art, and a fine bottle of wine is never hard to come by. In Alba, savor the refined taste of the white truffle accompanied by a hearty glass of Barolo. Head to Parma for a sampling of prosciutto di Parma, and don’t forget to pick up a wheel of parmigiano-reggiano. Travel to the hills of Tuscany, where a glass of red Vino Nobile di Montepulciano accompanies your meal of filetto d’anatra con tartufo (truffled duck breast) and to Campania, home of Naples, the Amalfi coastline, and, of course, pizza, in its many forms, but almost always topped with mozzarella di bufala. Descriptive sidebars key readers in to the best restaurants in town, where to buy the ingredients to prepare the dishes featured (and where to shop for the wine to accompany them) as well as tips on what to see during a visit. A sprinkling of recipes rounds out this information-packed resource. Included is an appendix with in-depth listings to help travelers plan their culinary journeys: what wine cellars to visit, where to dine, and how to navigate a busy market.Whether you’re an armchair traveler or an Italophile planning another trip, this volume provides an excellent guide.

Customer Review: Beautiful Coffee Table Book of Italy
This book was a birthday gift for a dear friend who has visited Italy several times and who thoroughly enjoys its delicious cuisine. She loved it! The book is filled with beautiful photos and interesting information on the little towns of Italy. My friend has it on her coffee table for all to enjoy. A great gift!

Customer Review: Beautiful Towns is Italy
Wonderful book full of color photos, the only disappointing thing is that there were no recipes provided.

Bar Wine – Vinifera: The World’s Great Wine Grapes And Their Stories

Wineguy — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:00:29 +0000

Vinifera: The World’s Great Wine Grapes And Their Stories
Boxed Set of 40 Wine Grape Varietal Reference Cards. Featuring color photos, interesting history, lore and food pairings for 40 glorious wine producing varietals. A set of fascinating wine cards, or more specifically, wine grape reference cards. The information contained in these wine grape cards is fun, educational, informative and often obscure. The photographs are colorful and sumptous. An excellent wine gift for any host or hostess. A perfect Holiday gift such Mother’s Day, Father’s Day Valentines’ day or Christmas. Learn about Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Aglianico, Albarino, Viognier, Merlot, Chardonnay, Dolcetto, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet Sauvignon, and many others. Ideal for wine tasting parties and blind wine tastings.

Customer Review: Wow!
I recieved this deck of cards as a hostess gift and was blown away by the detail and information that is on each card; the color photographs are absolutely stunning. The pairing suggestions on the back make choosing that perfect wine for your next meal a cinch and with 40 cards of different grape varieties, there are endless opportunities to explore… everytime I go to a friends house I bring a deck of these cards and a bottle of wine- they make for great conversation during the evening. These are a MUST!!!!!!!!!

Customer Review: CAN LEARN A LOT FAST
This is a really good wine guide, because it’s not like a wine guide at all. It’s fun. The photographs of the grapes are really beautiful. You’re not used to seeing the grapes themsleves in the field (Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio…etc.), so that context kind of gives you a new appreciation of what’s in the bottle. The information is a fun read, too. It’s got historical notes, where the names of the grapes come from, fun little stories, plus its packed with wine knowledge, but totally accessable. I didn’t know all that much about wines and this reference pack has made me a lot more comfortable ordering and talking about wine.

Best Wine – The Wine Journal: Label Collection Album & Label Remover Kit

Wineguy — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:00:16 +0000

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The Wine Journal: Label Collection Album & Label Remover Kit
Collect your favorite wine labels to recall the memory of the wines characteristics, vintage, the occasion, the food served and those who enjoyed the wine. The Wine Journal contains 24 Wine Appeal Label Removers to remove and laminate the label and adhere it to one of 24 Label Collection pages found in the journal. Each label collection page offers a space to write about the wine and a wine rating system on the reverse side of each page. There are tab sections for Reds, Whites and the Cellar Inventory. The Wine Journal also contains a glossary of terms, cellar inventory pages to track your wine purchases and some amusing wine quotes. All featured in a black linen cover with a wine themed illustration on the front cover. This illustration can be removed to add your own illustration of photo from your own wine tasting adventures. Refill Label Remover Kits 24 and refill Wine Label Collector Pages exclusive from Wine Appeal Products are available through Amazon. The Wine Journal is a fantastic gift for the wine lover!

Customer Review: Great Wine Journal!
I bought my first wine journal last year. We have shared it with friends and taken it to restaurants to help in wine selections. We’ve not had any problems using the label covers except when we were removing them after the 2nd bottle of wine! It’s become a tradition with friends to include their comments and ratings. We’ve just ordered a second journal to give as a gift.

Customer Review: Wines Appeal to me
I chose the Wine Appeal wine journal because it had the Wine Appeal brand of label removers included in the journal. I’ve been using the Wine Appeal label removers for years and love them and thought I can’t go wrong. I was thrilled when the journal arrived! It is great quality and you can add more pages to it if you want. The pages are sold on Amazon and I just found the label removers on Amazon too. I loved the front cover picture but have taken it out and put in a picture of my husband and I from our recent trip to Napa. I love this journal! It’s what my sister and special wine loving friends will be getting for Christmes.

Grape Wine – Wine Journal

Wineguy — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:00:12 +0000

Wine Journal
It’s time for a toast! Designed for recording the memorable aspects of each bottle of wine, the entry pages of this journal include an easy scoring system and plenty of space for pasting in labels. A completed journal becomes a handy personal reference book for both connoisseurs and casual sippers.

128 pages (guided), 8 x 5 inches

Customer Review: Great value for the price
I’ve just bought the wine journal and it it very nice! I is made lovely and all my labels fit in there. As a red wine lover I do not like that the journal has two parts – for reds and whites , but I am planning on putting reds in pages for whites.

Customer Review: I’ve researched others and this one is great
I ordered this as a gift and just received it. I think its great, the layout of the journal pages is simple and straightforward. There is plenty of room for writing your review – so many journals will have one line to fill in ‘taste’ (isn’t that what its all about?). And there is an open page to the left of each journal page that lets you paste in wine labels. I’m too lazy to peel off labels and the pages are so nicely designed that it wouldn’t look bad or look like anything is missing if you didn’t include a label. Some journals have a giant open spot on the page itself. It has a very simple scoring system with just 1 – 5 stars, and just circle what applies in a couple of different categories.

Its great as a gift, its a very nice looking book, hard cover, great design. I highly recommend it.

(If this review was helpful, please indicate so)

Ice Wine – Murder By the Glass: A Wine Lover’s Mystery

Wineguy — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:00:14 +0000

Murder By the Glass: A Wine Lover’s Mystery
The poisoning of a Napa Valley bride has oenophile Nikki Sands researching what may have been a killer bottle of wine.

Customer Review: Great Heroine
Nikki Sands is a great heroine who makes the mix of mystery and wine a winner. This series is loaded with good old fashioned who dunnit plotlines, a quirky character, a nice blend of romance and the wine info, which isn’t overbearing or pretentious makes this the kind of book I like to read.

In this second installment of the wine lover’s mysteries, Nikki has been invited by her boss who she has a crush on to the wedding of the year. She’s walking on air until the obnoxious bride winds up dead in the dressing room. Suspects are plenty but the police zero in on Nikki’s friend Isabel. Nikki makes it her plight to set Isabel free and prove her innocence. She does so with help of Isabel’s brother Andres, which makes for a wonderful love triangle between Nikki, Derek and Andres.

The author surprised me with who the killer turned out to be, and I found myself having a good laugh throughout the book, which has subtle comedy throughout.

Pick up this series and start reading. You won’t be dissapointed.

Customer Review: Wine has turned
Nikki Sands works at a Napa Valley winery and spends her off time solving mysteries. When her best friend, Isabel, is accused of murdering her former lovers bride, Nikki begins looking for the real murderer. I was looking forward to reading an interesting mystery set in Northern California wine country. What I found was a disappointment. The characters were not fully developed, more like stick figures. The heroine/detective is a 35 year old that doesn’t know what she wants to do, just as the book doesn’t know whether it is a mystery or romance. And it can’t be deemed a romantic suspense.

Wine – The Bordeaux Betrayal: A Wine Country Mystery (Wine Country Mysteries)

Wineguy — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:00:11 +0000

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Cheap wines worry doctor – Stock Journal
SURGEON John Crozier operates on some of the 1500 Australians sent to hospital every week as a result of alcohol and can’t understand why wine should sell for as little as $2 a bottle. ”If a bottle of water is more expensive than a bottle of wine

The Bordeaux Betrayal: A Wine Country Mystery (Wine Country Mysteries)
Ellen Crosby’s third tale of suspense set amid the vines of Virginia wine country involves a two-hundred-year-old bottle of Bordeaux that Thomas Jefferson may have purchased for George Washington and is turning out to be a wine to die for.

It has been a year since Lucie Montgomery took over running her family vineyard at the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. The Bordeaux Betrayal now sweeps her into a mystery that began more than two centuries ago in France and ends in murder not far from Montgomery Estate Vineyard.

When author and historian Valerie Beauvais turns up dead the night after a verbal brawl with a noted wine critic on the grounds of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home, Lucie is certain Valerie’s death is related to something she knew concerning the authenticity of the priceless Washington Bordeaux.

As Lucie and her eccentric winemaker Quinn Santori bring in the last grapes of the season, Quinn’s controversial past becomes intertwined with the murder and the rare wine, testing the bonds of their increasingly close relationship. New neighbors challenge Lucie for allowing a century-old hunting club to use her land for foxhunting; Mick Dunne, Lucie’s ex-lover, comes back into her life; and her beloved French grandfather makes an unexpected visit that will rekindle painful memories some would prefer to forget.

As Lucie investigates the shadowy history of the Washington wine, she uncovers a web of deceit and betrayal and a long-forgotten scandal that affects not only the international wine world but her own as well

Customer Review: Great New Wine Mystery… With a Few Flaws
Amateur sleuth Lucie Montgomery is back, and this she tries to solve two murders in her beloved wine country – before a killer can target her.

A valuable bottle of wine that never made it to George Washington’s house is up for grabs at a charity auction. But the bottle’s value has attracted some shady characters to Lucie’s Virginia wine country. A greedy author tantalizes Lucie with a sordid provenance rumor about the bottle, but before Lucie can get the details, the author turns up dead.

As Lucie tries to track down the truth about the wine, her grandfather comes from Paris for a visit, her new neighbors – fanatic animal rights activists – launch a campaign against the legendary annual fox hound hunt, someone leaves nasty messages for Lucie and her love life becomes more complicated as an old lover comes on the scene and her feelings for her eccentric employee Quinn Santori come full bloom.

The third book in Ellen Crosby’s Wine Country Mystery series offers plenty of plot to keep readers guessing at the whodunit – and what will happen next to Lucie, who is dedicated to her thriving family winery.

There were a few things that bothered me about this book. First, Lucie, who has a bum foot and needs a cane to walk, wades into Goose Creek to rescue a woman is likely dead. She loses her cane, slips and could have drowned herself. That didn’t ring true to me.

Also, Lucie takes her current/former lover, Mick, to an event, where she wants to make it clear they are friends. At the end of the evening, however, she is more than happy to jump into bed with him, and his embarrassed and angry when he turns her down. She decides to steer clear, and still ends up in his bed at a later date. Then, she decides he is only looking for Miss Right Now, not Miss Long Term. This was a little too much for me.

Though this was told in first person, there were times I felt a step away from the character – not within the character’s perspective. This made it difficult to relate to her, to care about her.

Still, Crosby’s attention to wine making detail is stunning; she adds just enough to keep it unique and interesting, without going overboard. The tension between Lucie and Quinn leaps off the page and you immediately get that they are attracted to each other. Coming from a small town, I can easily visualize the character stereotypes Crosy has as secondary staples to Lucie and her family. Crosby easily draws on her reporter days to pepper the story with details about Thomas Jefferson purchasing wine for George Washington. Again, she adds just enough detail to put the issue in perspective before moving forward with the mystery.

The Bordeaux Betrayal: A Wine Country Mystery (Wine Country Mysteries) is a fast read for mystery lovers who are searching for a unique new series among the plethora of choices on the market today. Crosby’s story is engaging and will likely send fans back for more.

Check out her other novels in the series:

The Chardonnay Charade (Wine Country Mystery)

The Merlot Murders ((Wine Country Mysteries, Book 1)

Customer Review: Not Your Typical Wine Country Mystery
Third book in Ellen Crosby’s Wine Country Murders. This very enjoyable story isset in the Virginia wine country. Vineyard owner Lucie Montgomery wants to learn more about the origins of a very old bottle of wine which was donated to her charity auction. The very special bottle of Bordeaux supposedly was purchased by Thomas Jefferson as a gift for George Washington. Early in the story, Valerie Beauvais, a wine expert is killed in a suspicious car accident. Lucie’s main concern is determining if the bottle of Bordeaux is genuine or not, butshe feels that the suspicious death is somehow related. As Lucie tries to learn more about the “Washington Wine”‘s provenance, she enters a dangerous web of lies and deception.

Great characters and setting! I also enjoyed the information about wine making. This was the first book I’ve read by Ms. Crosby. She did a great job of bringing a new reader like me up to speed on the characters and their backgrounds. I’m looking forward to reading the first two books in this series.

Wine gift – To Cork or Not To Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle

Wineguy — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 08:00:35 +0000

Ask the Barman: Taking tips from the Greek god of wine – Jerusalem Post
Eyal Dobinsky explains how he uses his wealth of knowledge to bring fine reds and whites to the masses at his intimate TA wine bar, Juno. Even though Eyal Dobinsky spends his days, or more accurately nights, serving alcoholic drinks to the discerning

Milwaukee native eases wine worries in New York City restaurant – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Let’s say you are having a big night out at Gotham Bar and Grill, one of New York City’s best restaurants. And let’s just say the wine list, which has over 700 selections, is giving you an anxiety attack. You are mopping your Midwestern brow, sweating the

To Cork or Not To Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle
In Judgment of Paris, George M. Taber masterfully chronicled the historic 1976 wine tasting when unknown California wines defeated top French ones, marking a major turning point in wine history. Now he explores the most controversial topic in the world of wine: What product should be used to seal a bottle? Should it be cork, plastic, glass, a screwcap, or some other type of closure still to be invented?

For nearly four centuries virtually every bottle of wine had a cork in it. But starting in the 1970s, a revolution began to topple the cork monopoly. In recent years, the rebellion has been gathering strength. Belatedly, the cork industry began fighting back, while trying to retain its predominant position. Each year 20 billion closures go onto wine bottles, and, increasingly, they are not corks.

The cause of the onslaught against cork is an obscure chemical compound known as TCA. In amounts as low as several parts per trillion, the compound can make a $400 bottle of wine smell like wet newspaper and taste equally bad. Such wine is said to be “corked.” While cork’s enemies urge people to throw off the old and embrace new closures, millions of wine drinkers around the world are still in love with the romance of the cork and the ceremony of opening a bottle.

With a thorough command of history, science, winemaking, and marketing, Taber examines all sides of the debate. Along the way, he collects a host of great characters and pivotal moments in the production, storage, and consumption of wine, and paints a truly satisfying portrait of a wholly intriguing controversy. As Australian winemaker Brian Croser describes it: “It’s scary how passionate people can be on this topic. Prejudice and extreme positions have taken over, and science has often gone out the window.”

Customer Review: An interesting book with a limited audience
To really enjoy this book I think you need to like wine, have some interest in the chemistry of wine, and enjoy stories of marketplace battles between products. The book worked for me, but many will find parts of it uninteresting.

The cork has a long, generally distinguished tradition as a wine bottle stopper. But in the last three decades poor process control started to allow corks tainted with a foul-tasting contaminant to reach market, and the “corked” bottle of wine became an increasing challenge to vintners.

This set off a wave of entrepreneurs trying to build a better “cork” (or at least a better seal). The book tells the story of many brands, and their challenges, successes, and failures. Many fell by the wayside, but several are still expanding in the marketplace, each having its proponents and detractors. Ultimately, there is probably no ideal stopper for every bottle. Different approaches may apply to different wines with different aging requirements and different life expectancies. And wines may need to be made differently depending on the stopper chosen.

While the need for new stoppers seemed obvious five or ten years ago, corked bottles are clearly less of a problem in recent years. At the end the author explains how the cork industry has brought this about by cleaning up its act. So cork is likely to remain the stopper of choice for wines intended for years of bottle aging for some time to come. But as wine production expands the need for seals that don’t rely on the bark production of some old oak trees is certain to increase. The battle for that market will continue. At least as long as bottles hold out against bags in boxes …

Customer Review: Fantastic read
I’m a wine industry professional and this book was packed with new information that was fascinating while not being overly technical. I think my favorite parts were little facts about TCA 2,4,6. I highly recommend reading this if you ever have to deal with the question of cork vs screw cap. However it doesn’t draw a definite conclusion but gives you enough information to formal an intelligent opinion.

Vinifera: The World’s Great Wine Grapes And Their Stories

Wineguy — Fri, 20 May 2011 02:00:30 +0000

Vinifera: The World’s Great Wine Grapes And Their Stories
Boxed Set of 40 Wine Grape Varietal Reference Cards. Featuring color photos, interesting history, lore and food pairings for 40 glorious wine producing varietals. A set of fascinating wine cards, or more specifically, wine grape reference cards. The information contained in these wine grape cards is fun, educational, informative and often obscure. The photographs are colorful and sumptous. An excellent wine gift for any host or hostess. A perfect Holiday gift such Mother’s Day, Father’s Day Valentines’ day or Christmas. Learn about Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Aglianico, Albarino, Viognier, Merlot, Chardonnay, Dolcetto, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet Sauvignon, and many others. Ideal for wine tasting parties and blind wine tastings.

Customer Review: Wow!
I recieved this deck of cards as a hostess gift and was blown away by the detail and information that is on each card; the color photographs are absolutely stunning. The pairing suggestions on the back make choosing that perfect wine for your next meal a cinch and with 40 cards of different grape varieties, there are endless opportunities to explore… everytime I go to a friends house I bring a deck of these cards and a bottle of wine- they make for great conversation during the evening. These are a MUST!!!!!!!!!

Customer Review: CAN LEARN A LOT FAST
This is a really good wine guide, because it’s not like a wine guide at all. It’s fun. The photographs of the grapes are really beautiful. You’re not used to seeing the grapes themsleves in the field (Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio…etc.), so that context kind of gives you a new appreciation of what’s in the bottle. The information is a fun read, too. It’s got historical notes, where the names of the grapes come from, fun little stories, plus its packed with wine knowledge, but totally accessable. I didn’t know all that much about wines and this reference pack has made me a lot more comfortable ordering and talking about wine.

Best Wine – The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine

Wineguy — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:00:21 +0000

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Madoff’s wine, minibar stash to be auctioned – Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Bernard Madoff’s wine collection hits the auction block on Wednesday, when bidders can scoop up everything from a case of fine Bordeaux to a 2-ounce bottle of vodka with a stained label. The online auction, to be run by Morrell

The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine
It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold.

In 1985, at a heated auction by Christie’s of London, a 1787 bottle of Château Lafite Bordeaux—one of a cache of bottles unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson—went for $156,000 to a member of the Forbes family. The discoverer of the bottle was pop-band manager turned wine collector Hardy Rodenstock, who had 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?

It would take more than two decades for those questions to be answered and involve a gallery of intriguing players—among them Michael Broadbent, the bicycle-riding British auctioneer who speaks of wines as if they are women and staked his reputation on the record-setting sale; Serena Sutcliffe, Broadbent’s elegant archrival, whose palate is covered by a hefty insurance policy; and Bill Koch, the extravagant Florida tycoon bent on exposing the truth about Rodenstock.

Pursuing the story from Monticello to London to Zurich to Munich and beyond, Benjamin Wallace also offers a mesmerizing history of wine, complete with vivid accounts of subterranean European laboratories where old vintages are dated and of Jefferson’s colorful, wine-soaked days in France, where he literally drank up the culture.

Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange, The Billionaire’s Vinegar is the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries. It is also the debut of an exceptionally powerful new voice in narrative non-fiction.

Customer Review: caveat emptor
as good as an Ian Rankin mystery! If you have ever bought or sold anything at auction, this is
required reading. It’s a great story…runs from Jefferson to the nuclear age without missing a beat!
Fraud? it’s there. Greed? it’s there. Ego? it’s there. Revenge? it’s there.
LIke a fine wine, it is very good upon entry, improves in the middle and finishes
long and memorable!

Customer Review: A Fool and His Money
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Most people experience this by the time they reach the age of ten. Whether it’s a minor annoyance like discovering that sea monkeys are just brine shrimp or a soul-crushing defeat like when the little girl down the street said she wanted to give you a kiss but ended up throwing rocks at you instead, almost everyone at some point in their childhood has this notion hammered home. Reading “The Billionaire’s Vinegar,” one comes away with the distinct impression that this was a lesson sorely missing from wine collectors’ young lives.

Benjamin Wallace’s books is ostensibly about a supposed 200 year old cache of wine that was purportedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. Yes, that Thomas Jefferson, of the Founding Fathers’ Thomas Jeffersons. How did everyone know these ancient bottles belonged to old TJ himself? Why, they had his initials engraved on them, of course! And the fact that they also had dates like “1784″ and “1787″ on them made everyone know that they weren’t owned by Theodore Jablowski (Harvard, class of 1982). Like a lot of old things, this cache of wine become highly sought after by individuals with too much money and way too much interest in centuries old fermented grape juice. It is in the exploration of this cast of characters where “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” shines.

The world of high end wine collecting is populated by figures with so-much-better-than-you names like Broadbent, Rodenstock, and Shanken. Americans with names like Forbes and Koch didn’t stand a chance getting involved with such people. According to Wallace, the good old days of wine collecting came to an end when the vulgar Americans entered the scene. Prior to that, apparently, the hobby was filled with proper European gentlemen playing in their wine cellars older than the New World, engaging in vertical and horizontal (what, no diagonal?) tastings, and generally living in an utopia. But once the Americans — all new money and no taste — got wind that wine was cool, well, the temptation became too great. Serpents entered this Eden with dollar signs in their eyes, and Paradise was lost. Wallace spends most of “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” on one of these alleged serpents: the discoverer of the Jefferson bottles, Hardy Rodenstock, nee Meinhard Görke. Chapter after chapter outlines how Rodenstock’s too-good-to-be-true finds were gobbled up by everyone from Malcolm Forbes (yes, daddy of that guy who ran for President so many years back) to industrialist Bill Koch (“pronounced like the soda”; yeah, I’d never heard of him, either). In the end, Forbes winds up storing his Jefferson bottle vertically under hot lights, causing the cork to take a swim in the elixir below it; Koch eventually gets the “if it sounds too good to be true” lesson and ends up spending five times what he paid for his Jefferson bottle engaging ex-FBI guys and nuclear physicists to make the German pay. We Americans may be uncouth, but we sure know how to party.

Interspersed amongst these chapters of Rodenstock’s alleged malfeasances are scenes of haughty oenophiles (wine connoisseurs — get yer mind out of the gutter) engaging in days-long tastings of wines that they say are awesome or gnarly or whatever oenophiles say to describe quality hooch. Sadly, Wallace makes the persuasive argument that a number of these wines are fake. Even worse, so many of these wine lovers have, over the years, tended to turn a blind eye to this rampant forgery. One scene near the end of the book describes how a panel of experts came together in the mid-1990s to develop a set of recommended best practices that the wine producers could have used to curtail forgers. Nothing came of it. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil: maybe this would make a more appropriate theme for this book.

In the end, “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” is less about the wine hobby than it is about the individuals that populate it and the self-delusional and even self-destructive tactics they use to play in it. As a reader, you’ll alternately want to slap these people and feel sorry for them. You’ll marvel at how Michael Broadbent ties his career to the shady Rodenstock, all the while cheering Bill Koch to uncover the the truth behind his collection. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” A valuable lesson that “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” shows you’re never too old to learn.