Benjamin Wallace - The Billionaire's Vinegar

as of 1980 a national poll “23% of wine consumed in U.S. ‘on the rocks,’” WS, May 1–15, 1980.

10,000 bottles in his cellar “Taking Wine Off the Pedestal,” Food & Wine, April 1985.

30,000-bottle wine collection “Wine,” NYT, June 13, 1982.

65,000 bottles “What Motivates a Super Collector?”, WS, October 31, 1991.

Australian study of wine judges’ teeth R. Georgiou, “A review of the dental effects of regular wine tasting,” Wine Industry Journal 12 (1991), 294–95.

“I feel a genuine sadness” “A Glass Half-Full,” The Underground Wine Journal 19, no. 7.

as early as 1973 Edmund Penning-Rowsell, “Growth of the Wine Auction Market,” Christie’s Wine Review, 1977.

an “extraordinary recrudescence” Ibid.

Berry Brothers had unearthed “Heitz Sale Slows Pace,” WS, August 31, 1990.

Ten Broeck Mansion “30,000 rare bottles go on the block,” WS, April 15, 1978; “Heublein promises the rare,” WS, May 1–15,1980.

Some bottles at the 1980 Heublein auction “Wine from the sea bed—is it drinkable?”, Decanter, date unknown; “Heublein promises the rare,” WS, May 1–15, 1980.

“took a look at the cellar” “Jefferson’s Paris Wines: Comparing the Questions with the Facts,” VWGJ, Spring 1986.

a hundred bottles “Man with a nose for a rarity,” The Times (London), December 15, 1990.

“Not since lunch” “Worst Wine Moments,” Decanter, January 1991.

“America’s first wine expert” Decanter, August 1984.

Rodenstock himself had written a long article “Château d’Yquem: Die Geschichte des Berühmtesten Weissweines der Welt,” Alles über Wein, no. 3, 1983.

“had no meaning to me at first” “400,000 Mark—beim teursten Wein der Welthört die Freundschaft auf…,” MAZ, February 28, 1991; “Jefferson’s Paris Wines: Comparing the Questions with the Facts,” VWGJ, Spring 1986.

“This suite of events” Richard Olney, Yquem (Boston: David R. Godine, 1986), 152.

“dark in color” “Jefferson’s Paris Wines Found in 1985,” R. de Treville Lawrence, III, ed., Jefferson and Wine (The Plains, Virginia: The Vinifera Wine Growers Association, 1989).

“tremendous long finish” “Jefferson’s Paris Wines Found,” VWGJ, Fall 1985.

“historic event” Ibid.

“I have sealed all the bottles” Ibid.

“Questions will no doubt arise” Ibid.

“the entire act of making love occurs” “Mann, da ist im Gaumen die Hölle los,” Der Spiegel, no. 7, 1988.

“a deep, luminous old gold colour” “Record Prices,” Decanter, February 1987.

Christie’s had never sold “Oldest Bordeaux, Yes…”, NYT, October 30, 1985.

Göring… placed an order Don and Petie Kladstrup, Wine and War (New York: Broadway Books, 2001), 68.

outright fabrication of wines Edward Penning-Rowsell, The Wines of Bordeaux (London: Penguin, 1989), 116.

Louis A. Feliciano was arrested “Counterfeit Wine,” Vintage Magazine, October 1982.

“appears to be original” Christie’s Sale Memorandum 314.

“the wine had an excellent constitution” Christie’s Finest and Rarest Wines auction catalog, December 5, 1985.

Jefferson and Wine Vinifera Wine Growers Association, 1976.

“It’s wine” “A Tasting of Lafites,” in Frank J. Prial, Decantations (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001), 254–57.

“a meaty little wine, faded but fascinating” JMB, The Great Vintage Wine Book (New York: Knopf, 1981), 35.

“crystallized violets and clean bandages” JMB, New Great Vintage Wine Book, 18.

“incredibly awful creosote, tarry smell” Ibid., 15.

“Tasting old wine is like making love to an old lady” JMB, Vintage Wine, 22.

in response to an inquiry by Broadbent “The Jefferson Bottles,” The New Yorker, September 3 & 10, 2007.

more than 10,000 plundered bottles Kladstrup, Wine and War, 203.

the only time he felt intimate Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 427.

half a million bottles of wine Kladstrup, Wine and War, 1–2.

culled the 20,000 best bottles Ibid., 42–44.

In addition to “A Piece of History,” in The New Yorker (January 20, 1986), I also benefited from lingering BBC footage of the auction and from a first-person account by Marvin Shanken, “Passion vs. Reason in Wine Collecting,” which appeared in the February 28, 1998, issue of WS.

last in his class “The Man Who Knows What Everyone’s Drinking,” NYT, February 16, 1986.

two-bedroom smoking lounge “He Did It His Way,” Fortune, May 2, 1994.

seemed to pine for a bygone world Christopher Winans, Malcolm Forbes (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 88–89.

He planned to celebrate “Record Bid Brings Jefferson Wine Home,” Baltimore Sun, December 6, 1985.

“Well, Pop, …I did what you told me” Malcolm Forbes, More Than I Dreamed (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 213.

Malcolm dropped the phone Ibid.

“The Forbes family would be far better off” Ibid.

The investigation by Lucia (Cinder) Goodwin (now Stanton), which is the basis for much of this chapter, was detailed in her “Research Report: Château Lafite 1787, with initials ‘Th.J.,’” dated December 12, 1985.

sold some furniture James A. Bear, Jr., “Furniture and Furnishings of Monticello,” Antiques, date unknown.

gave a draft of the Declaration Silvio A. Bedini, The Declaration of Independence Desk: Relic of Revolution (Smithsonian, 1992), 34.

“If these things acquire a superstitious value” Ibid., 34–36.

walking stick… watches Marc Leepson, Saving Monticello (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 14.

ten clippings of his hair “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas Jefferson,” Magazine of Albermarle County History 5, no. 32 (1974), 76n.

40,000 letters Leepson, Saving Monticello, 14.

the silver went to his daughter “Thomas Jefferson’s Silver,” Antiques, September 1958.

“130 valuable negroes” Notice in Richmond Inquirer, January 9, 1827.

grandchildren bought a lot of the furniture Leepson, Saving Monticello, 15.

“desist from such trespasses” Ibid., 17.

Most of Jefferson’s books Ibid.

art collection was shipped to Boston Ibid., 16.

paintings were severely damaged Jane Blair Cary Smith, The Carys of Virginia, diary excerpts in Cary Papers, University of Virginia Archives, courtesy Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.

only one sold Leepson, Saving Monticello, 16.

“Superstitions! Imaginary value!” Bedini, The Declaration of Independence Desk, 40–43.