Hardy Rodenstock

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125 vintages of Château d'Yquem (a bottle of vintage 1973 pictured) was the subject of Rodenstock's most famous tasting, in 1998.

Hardy Rodenstock (born December 7, 1941) is a former publisher and manager of pop and Schlager music in Germany and is a prominent wine collector, connoisseur and trader, with a special interest in old and rare wines.^[1] He became famous for an uncanny ability to track down old and very rare wines,^[2] and for arranging extravagant wine tastings featuring these wines.

Rodenstock was born in the town of Marienwerder (Kwidzyn) as Meinhard Görke, which is still his legal name.

1 Rare wine tastings
2 Sales at wine auctions
3 Pétrus imperial bottle controversy
4 Controversy over authenticity of Thomas Jefferson wine bottles
5 References
6 Further reading

[edit] Rare wine tastings

From 1980, Rodenstock arranged annual high-profile wine tastings of old and rare wines from his collections to which he invited friends and other prominent people. The tastings would be weekend tastings held at gourmet restaurants, hotels and resorts, and featured huge quantitites of wine at Rodenstock's expense.^[1] The participants included German celebrities and later expanded to include some of the most prominent international wine critics.^[2]

The most famous Rodenstock tasting was held from August 30 to September 5, 1998 at Hotel Königshof in Munich, when a tasting of 125 vintages of Château d'Yquem, the oldest of which were of the 1784 vintage, was held. Two 18th century, forty 19th century, and all relased 20th century vintages of Château d'Yquem up to 1991 featured in this vertical tasting which was conducted over the course of a week. The week included five lunches, seven dinners, and over 175 other wines.^[2]^[3] It is most likely the most most extensive Yquem tasting ever and it has been the subject of a book.^[4]

The exclusive nature of the wine selection featured at Rodenstock's tastings is indicated by the fact that Michael Broadbent, who is considered to be the world's leading authority on old wines,^[5] has tasted many of his rarest and oldest wine's at Rodenstock's tastings, in particularly most 18th century wines he has tasted.^[2]^[6]

Other participants at his tastings included Jancis Robinson^[7], Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the then-owner of Château d'Yquem, Alexandre de Lur-Saluces.

[edit] Sales at wine auctions

Oenophile Thomas Jefferson, one of the US Founding Fathers and later President of the USA (here in a 1791 portrait) served as the young republic's Minister to France 1785-1789, where he made several trips to Bordeaux and other regions and later arranged to have French and other European wine sent to him in the US.

Rodenstock not just served wines at his annual tasting, but also bought and sold at wine auctions. In 1985, he came into possession of his most famous bottles, which have later become the subject of considerable controversy as to their authenticity and provenance. According to Rodenstock's own account, in spring 1985 he received a phone call about a discovery of old wine bottles in Paris.^[1] The bottles had been found in a walled-up old cellar^[6], and were engraved with vintage years from the late 18th century. This had in itself been an interesting find for a collector of old wines, but the bottles were also engraved with the initials "Th. J.", which was taken as an indication that they had belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was an active oenophile and wine collector, who spent much time in France in the 1780s and whose interest in wine is well documented.^[8]

Later in the same year, on December 5, 1985, Rodenstock put one of the "Th. J." bottles up for auction at Christie's in London: a bottle of 1787 Château Lafite engraved "1787 Lafitte Th. J.". The auction catalogue simply listed the value as "inestimable", and it was sold for 105,000 pound sterling, which as of 2007 still remains the worldwide auction record for a single bottle of wine.^[9] The buyer was Christopher Forbes, bidding against Marvin Shanken of Wine Spectator Magazine, with Michael Broadbent handling the gavel at the auction.

Additional "Th. J." bottles were sold, also via other auction houses.

[edit] Pétrus imperial bottle controversy

In late 1990s, David Peppercorn and his wife, Serena Sutcliffe, created controversy when they questioned the authenticity Imperial (6 liter) bottles of Château Pétrus from the 1921, 1924, 1926, 1928 and 1934 vintages that were served at collectors wine tasting events in 1989 & 1990. The tastings were conducted from the personal collection of Rodenstock who claimed to have purchased them from a private collector in England. While Peppercorn & Sutcliffe concerns were never proven, and disputed by Rodenstock, the current manager of Château Pétrus, Christian Moueix, confirmed that the estate has no records of producing Imperials during those vintages.^[10]

[edit] Controversy over authenticity of Thomas Jefferson wine bottles

In 2005, US art and wine collector Bill Koch, who had bought some of the bottles attributed to Jefferson, prepared to exhibit items from his collection at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, including the Jefferson bottles. The museum asked for provenance of the items to be displayed. Koch had bought four bottles in 1988, Châteaux Lafite and Branne-Mouton (present-day Château Mouton-Rothschild) of the 1784 and 1787 vintages, at a US wine auction house (Chicago Wine Company) and a UK rare wine dealer (Farr Vintners), and paid a total of about 500,000 US dollars for them. When Koch's staff couldn't find anything but Michael Broadbent's authentification of the bottles to back up their provenance, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, Charlottesville, Virginia was contacted. The foundation's curator replied that based on Jefferson's records, the foundation didn't think that the bottles had been in the possession of Thomas Jefferson.^[9] Inquiries at Chicago Wine Company and Farr Vintners came up with the result that all four of Koch's bottles originated with Rodenstock.^[1]

After initial attempts at contacts with Rodenstock gave no significant results, Koch hired a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent to form a team to start private investigations into Rodenstock's sales of wine.^[2] David Molyneux-Berry, former heard of Sotheby's wine department was hired as a consultant, and several forensic investigations were conducted on the wines, bottles and engravings.^[6]^[11]^[12]

On August 31, 2006, Koch filed a civil lawsuit against Rodenstock a.k.a Görke in a New York federal court, claiming that he had been the victim of fraud. The reason that Rodenstock personally was named as defendant, rather than Chicago Wine Company or Farr Vintners, was that Koch claimed that Rodenstock had orchestrated an ongoing scheme to defraud wine collectors.^[6]^[13] Koch's lawsuit included many results from his team's forensic investigations.

Rodenstock maintained that as a German citizen living in Germany, the court had no jurisdiction over him, especially since the bottles were bought from third parties, and that the statute of limitation should bar the case.^[14] He therefore refused to take part in the proceedings. Therefore, on August 14, 2007 the magistrate judge supervising the pretrial procedures recommended that the court should enter a default judgment against Rodenstock, provided that the case was not thrown out by the trial judge because of Rodenstock's procedural defences.^[15]^[16] On January 11, 2008, the case was thrown out by the judge because the court was lacking personal jurisdiction over Rodenstock as defendant.^[17] Koch was given 30 days to refile his lawsuit if he was unsatisfied with the court's ruling, and he did so on February 11, 2008. The refiled lawsuit attempted to address the issue of the court's jurisdiction over Rodenstock.^[18] When the case was refiled, it was not known when the court would next respond to it. When Rodenstock still refused to take part in the proceedings after the lawsuit was refiled, Koch argued on March 27, 2008 that Rodenstock should be found in default. At the same time, Koch filed a lawsuit in Chicago against the Chicago Wine Company and the Chicago-based Julienne Importing Company.^[19]

To media covering the trial, Rodenstock has presented various arguments to support the authenticity of the "Th. J." bottles, and counter-arguments to Koch's claim.^[15] He has however never revealed the name of the person who sold the bottles to him, the address in Paris where the bottles were found, or the exact number of bottles found. Figures ranging from "a dozen or so" to thirty have been quoted throughout the years.^[1]^[13] The German magazine Stern, which ran a story on the Jefferson bottle controversy in March 2007, has offered Rodenstock to have bottles still in his possession analysed by the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (which determined the Hitler Diaries to be faked) at their expense, but Rodenstock has declined.^[20]^[21]

In early 2008, it became known that author Benjamin Wallace was writing a book titled The Billionaire's Vinegar about the controversy due to be published in May 2008. The film rights to this book had been purchased by a Hollywood consortium, while HBO simultaneously had bought the film rights to the corresponding New Yorker article.^[22]