false 417368 2706168 0307338770 9780307338778 257 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255987614m/2706168.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255987614s/2706168.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2706168.The_Billionaire_s_Vinegar_The_Mystery_of_the_World_s_Most_Expensive_Bottle_of_Wine 3.42 672 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.]]> 417368 3.42 700 263 2008 3417959 1592134610 9781592134618 1 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3417959.The_Philadelphia_Reader 5.00 1 417368 3.42 700 263 2006 3827135 0205277012 9780205277018 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3827135.Consciousness_and_Behavior 0.0 0 417368 3.42 700 263 765090 0.0 0 0 1983 1461309 0895031396 9780895031396 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183845361m/1461309.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183845361s/1461309.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1461309.Hypnosis_and_Imagination 0.0 0 417368 3.42 700 263 1996 796483 1556194366 9781556194368 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/796483.Individual_Differences_in_Conscious_Experience 0.0 0 417368 3.42 700 263 2000 7375665 9867247973 9789867247971 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7375665-the-billionaire-s-vinegar 0.0 0 417368 3.42 700 263 2009 3589059 0882294156 9780882294155 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3589059.Applied_Hypnosis_An_Overview 0.0 0 417368 3.42 700 263 1979 3522855 0805823956 9780805823950 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3522855.Adaptive_Spatial_Alignment 0.0 0 1488429 0.0 0 0 417368 3.42 700 263 1997