The Billionaire's Vinegar (29 page)

seventy gallons to an acre
Robert M. Parker, Jr.,
The World’s Greatest Wine Estates
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 132, 214.

just one glass of Yquem
Richard Olney,
Yquem
(Boston: David R. Godine, 1986), 35.

20,000 gold francs
Ibid., 46.

Gladstone, himself a claret man
Asa Briggs,
Haut-Brion
(London: Faber and Faber, 1994), 92.

Haut-Brion had only four hogsheads
Letter from John Bondfield to TJ, xber 6, 1788,
Papers
XIV, 336–37.

“it admits of a doubt”
Christopher Fielden,
Is This the Wine You Ordered, Sir?
(London: Christopher Helm, 1989), 124–25.

Disraeli
Ray,
Lafite,
65.

That first season
“A Brief History of Wine Auctions,”
VWGJ,
Fall 1986.

By 1978 the numbers
“The Wine Auction Market,”
Christie’s Wine Review
(1980), 12.

Before Christie’s Rosebery sale…launched its own wine department
Loftus,
Anatomy of the Wine Trade,
145–46.

the price of old wines
“The wine auction market—1966–1971,”
Christie’s Wine Review
(1972), 25.

“certainly the largest quantity of any one vintage”
“Wine,”
Art & Auction,
February 1986.

“upwards of 100 loads of Good Hay”
“Out-of-Town and Overseas Sales,”
Christie’s Wine Review
(1980), 35.

“sexy
demi-mondaine” JMB,
Vintage Wine
(New York: Harcourt, 2002), 33.

“middle-aged lady”
Ibid., 58.

“the strenuous efforts of our competitors”
“Introduction,”
Christie’s Wine Review
(1979).

“pure propaganda”
Loftus,
Anatomy of the Wine Trade,
148.

“not a very healthy step
” “Changing Times,”
Decanter,
1984.

“of infinitely better quality”
“Premium Policy,”
Decanter,
August 1984.

“essentially a piece of ephemera”
“Premium Fallacies,”
Decanter,
1984 or 1985.

“Sepulchral hollow laughter”
“The Last Laugh,”
Decanter,
August 1986.

“The lack of enthusiasm shows”
“In Britain It’s All Business,”
WS,
May 31, 1988.

Sotheby’s was the quality auctioneer
Ibid.

“the largest quantity [of cases of port]”
“Port Prices Show Gains,”
Decanter,
1984.

A magnum of 1864 Lafite
“Time in a Bottle,”
Connoisseur,
February 1992.

American demand was the chief reason
“Wine,”
Financial Times,
August 17, 1985.

Before leaving France in 1789, Jefferson shipped
Letter from TJ to John Jay, September 17, 1789,
Papers
XV, 436–7.

As secretary of state, Jefferson
Letter from TJ to Joseph Fenwick, September 6, 1790,
Papers
XVII, 493–94.

Jefferson’s congratulatory letter
Letter from TJ to James Monroe, April 8, 1817, Library of Congress collection.

“No nation is drunken”
Letter from TJ to J. G. Hyde de Neuville, December 13, 1818, Library of Congress collection.

who regarded Jefferson as a fop
John Hailman,
Thomas Jefferson on Wine
(University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 213.

“We could…make as great a variety of wines”
Letter from TJ to Lasteyrie, July 15, 1808, Library of Congress collection.

Jefferson claimed, patriotically
Letter from TJ to John Adlum, October 7, 1809,
Papers, Retirement Series
I, 586–57.

America’s first “exquisite wine, produced in quantity”
Letter from TJ to William Johnson, May 10, 1817, Library of Congress collection.

“There was, as usual, the dissertation upon wines”
David McCullough,
John Adams
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 587.

three to four and a half glasses of wine
Letter from TJ to Vine Utley, March 21, 1819, Library of Congress collection.

His sizable library included
“The Wine Books in Jefferson’s Library,”
Wayward Tendrils Quarterly
11, no. 2 (April 2001).

“wine from long habit has become”
Letter from TJ to Fernandez Oliviera, December 16, 1815, Library of Congress collection.

By the turn of the twentieth century
Peter Meltzer, “America Collects,”
Christie’s Wine Companion
(1987).

the 1959 vintage
Kathleen Bourke, “Rise of the American Connoisseur,”
Christie’s Wine Review,
1976.

The debut Heublein auction
JMB, “Heublein and the US Wine Auction Scene,”
Christie’s Wine Companion,
edited by Pamela Vandyke Price (Devon, England: Webb & Bower, 1989).

$31,000…$38,000
“‘It Doesn’t Make Sense,’”
WS,
January 1986.

110 degrees Fahrenheit
JMB, “Heublein and the US Wine Auction Scene,”
Christie’s Wine Companion,
1989.

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.

4. M
ONSIEUR
Y
QUEM

“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.

5. P
ROVENANCE

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.

6. “W
E
D
ID
W
HAT
Y
OU
T
OLD
U
S”

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.

7. I
MAGINARY
V
ALUE

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.

brass coal scuttle
“Jefferson Relic Stolen,”
NYT,
June 8, 1904.

marble punch bowl
“Bryan Has Jefferson Relic,”
NYT,
December 19, 1904.

In 1930, Jefferson descendants consigned
“Descendants Offer Jefferson Relics,”
NYT,
October 26, 1930.

In the 1940s a New York antiques dealer
Provenance recorded in file on 1827 effects sale in special collections of Jefferson Library, courtesy Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.