Just reread this and it's very good. Kind of a thriller for the overemployed (or underemployed if you're that type of wealthy). ( )

I've had The Billionaire's Vinegar for a while now, reading it a bit here and a bit there, as it was the book I kept in the car and read at lunch or when I was at a restaurant alone for dinner or whatever. So the progress was pretty slow until a couple nights ago when the story really hooked me about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through and I brought it home and finished it.

I'd remembered hearing about bottles of wine thought to have been owned by Thomas Jefferson being auctioned off for extraordinary prices and remember thinking 'Why would anyone spend so much on wine that must be undrinkable?' So a book that looks into the whole deal, and asks if the famous wine was even real was very intriguing.

Benjamin Wallace does a good job of weaving together the stories of the bottles of wine, the major movers and shakers of the mega-wine collecting trend of the late 80's and 90's, the motivations behind such collectors (like the Forbes family and Bill Koch) and the groups they drink and collect with, the Auctioneers, the discoverer and seller, Hardy Rodenstock, and all the supporting cast of historians, wine merchants, vintners, scientists, and so forth.

Initially finding a small trove of wine bottles, still with wine in them, that are 200 years old and belonged to Thomas Jefferson is an amazing an unique thing. But then more and more unbelievably old and too-good-to-be-true wines go on sale and are shared around among a group of uber-elite oenophiles.

From interviews, documents, news coverage, letters and whatever else he can get Wallace retraces the provenance (or lack of provenance) of the bottles up to sale, and their fate after sale (drunk, broken, studied, mistreated in vanity displays...) as well as the motivations of the buyers. There are side trips into Jefferson's time in France and fascination with wine, the history of wine making, especially the elite French chateaux, the rise of wine-tasting and wine as bragging rights, the auction world and the rise of the wine departments at Southerby's and Christie's, and the phenomenon of counterfeit wine. The climax of the story is billionaire Ed Koch's growing suspicion about the wine he'd purchased and his relentless investigation into it's authenticity. But that climax makes up only about 60 out of 280 pages in a kind of a race to the conclusion of years of intrigue.

Since this is an account of actual events, there is no absolute clear-cut conclusion, or as the author puts it no "smoking corkscrew". Were the bottles Thomas Jefferson's? Almost certainly not. Did they really contain 200 year old wine? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe partly. Maybe a different answer for each bottle. It definitely makes for an informative, interesting, well paced story, and a view in to a world that almost none of us will ever personally experience. ( )

The style of writing was good for nonfiction, but there was WAY more detail here than necessary. I would have preferred reading a thirty page article on the topic. I wouldn't have bothered finishing it except for the fact that I'm reading it for my book club. ( )

Repetition in plot and detail could have been edited out a bit more. As someone who knew nothing about the recent history of wine before reading this book, I found it a good survey of the topic. ( )

This is a non-fiction book about the world of rare and old wines. Basically, it focuses on one particular bottle, a 1787 bottle of Lafite supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. It was auctioned by Christie's for $156,000 to the Forbes family. The book then delves into the society of old-wine drinkers and the authenticity of the wines. There is no definite conclusion on how to verify authenticity. The author makes his opinion on the authenticity of the bottle in question fairly clear. As a wine lover this was a really interesting book to read. It's also an interesting look at the spending habits of the extremely rich. There is a lot of information about the most famous French vineyards and about the history of Thomas Jefferson's love of wine. Very enjoyable. ( )