I read a fascinating article over the weekend about the ” Thomas Jefferson Wine Forgery”… At the time this certain bottle was the (and I think still is) the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold, selling for a whopping one hundred and five thousand pounds!! Sold to Christopher Forbes ( son of Malcolm and vice president of Forbes Magazine).
It got me thinking about the art of collecting wine… wine that is destined to spend its life either on a display shelf or locked away in a dark cellar only to be taken out, peered at then placed carefully away until the next time the wealthy owner has the urge to show it off. I am in two minds about this. One of the services that I offer as Mistress of the Vine is to help establish cellars and manage existing ones but when I formed this side of my business I always thought that I would help the owner of the cellar with……. ‘when is the correct time to drink or to sell’. The idea of buying a bottle of wine just to have it as part of a collection, that is similar to a notch on a bed post boggles my mind.
I am inserting a caption of the article I read which came out of the New Yorker Magazine (I’ll also attach a link – it really is a very good read).
“Bill Koch told me that he owns wine that he has no intention of ever drinking. He collects bottles from certain vineyards almost as if they were baseball cards, aiming to complete a set. “I just want a hundred and fifty years of Lafite on the wall,” he said. He would hesitate before consuming the harder-to-come-by vintages, because to do so would render the set incomplete, and also because the rarest old wines often come not from the best vintages but from the worst. Historically, when good vintages were produced, collectors would lay them down to see how they would age, Koch explained. But when renowned vineyards produced mediocre vintages people would drink them soon after they were bottled, making the vintage scarce. When I wondered why he would buy old wines that he never intended to drink, Koch shrugged. “I’m never going to shoot Custer’s rifle,” he said.”
I find this a little sad as I wonder if or when in my life time I will ever have an opportunity to taste wines like this. I would chew my own arm off to taste the great vintages of Lafite, Latour, Mouton and DRC and to think that there are bottles just sitting in cellars, their destiny never to be drunk… well, I can feel the tears welling as I write this! Over the top I know, but its true.
Do check out this article, it’s a long read but well worth it.
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