The billionaire's vinegar : the mystery of the world's most expensive bottle of wine

New York : Crown Publishers, 2008, 2008. Fine. 1st edition, 1st printing ; 319 p. ; 25 cm. ; ISBN: 9780307338778; 0307338770; National Library: 014614239; LCCN: 2007-31645 ; LC: TP548; Dewey: 641.2/223 ; OCLC: 164570511 ; black cloth in color pictorial dustjacket ; Contents: Lot 337 -- Incognito -- Tomb raider -- Monsieur Yquem -- Provenance -- "We did what you told us" -- Imaginary value -- The sweetness of death -- Salad dressing -- A pleasant stain, but not a great one -- The diviner of wines -- A built-in preference for the obvious -- Radioactive -- Letters from Hubsi -- "Awash in fakes" -- The last vertical -- Koch bottles -- Ghost particles -- Tailing Meinhard -- The finish.; "It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold. In 1985, a 1787 bottle of Chateau Lafite Bordeaux--one of a cache unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson--sold at auction for $156,000. 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 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? Author Wallace also offers a 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. This tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries is also the debut of a new voice in narrative non-fiction."--From publisher description. ; "Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange" ;