also re: The Billionaire’s Vinegar

Did everyone have a personal fax in the nineties and early aughts? Every time someone communicates in this book, they send a fax. “Later that same day, Rodenstock sent a fax directly to the judge overseeing Koch v. Rodenstock and pled his case. Koch, he said, was ‘a psychopath.’”

How the hell did Rodenstock even GET the judge’s fax number? Can you really just send personal missives to the judge overseeing someone’s lawsuit against you alleging psychosis with no problems? Confusions.

Almost done reading. It’s not really as compelling as it’s been made out to be, mostly because here’s what I know about wine: if it costs more than $12.99, I’m not buying it. But also it’s basically a story about a bunch of rich morons paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for something they either can’t/won’t use or can’t ever prove is genuine. It’s just not that interesting and would’ve made a better magazine article. But anyway, my most insane takeaway so far is that the difference between flat-out wine forgery and just general chateaux procedure is pretty blurry. I guess it’s all about intent, but really, what’s the difference between some rando taking an old bottle and filling it with a new wine and passing it off as a rare, old vintage, and a wine chateaux like Lafite taking an old bottle with low wine levels (because of evaporation) and “topping it up” with a new wine and passing it off as a rare, old vintage? It all seems pretty shady to me, no wonder it’s so easy to dupe these people.
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Almost done reading. It’s not really as compelling as it’s been made out to be, mostly because here’s what I know about wine: if it costs more than $12.99, I’m not buying it. But also it’s basically a story about a bunch of rich morons paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for something they either can’t/won’t use or can’t ever prove is genuine. It’s just not that interesting and would’ve made a better magazine article. But anyway, my most insane takeaway so far is that the difference between flat-out wine forgery and just general chateaux procedure is pretty blurry. I guess it’s all about intent, but really, what’s the difference between some rando taking an old bottle and filling it with a new wine and passing it off as a rare, old vintage, and a wine chateaux like Lafite taking an old bottle with low wine levels (because of evaporation) and “topping it up” with a new wine and passing it off as a rare, old vintage? It all seems pretty shady to me, no wonder it’s so easy to dupe these people.