Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • The Billionaire's Vinegar

  • The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine
  • By: Benjamin Wallace
  • Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
  • Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (44 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Billionaire's Vinegar cover art

The Billionaire's Vinegar

By: Benjamin Wallace
Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Story of Wine cover art
The Sommelier's Atlas of Taste cover art
Barbarians at the Gate cover art
A Life in Wine cover art
Gallo Be Thy Name cover art
Godforsaken Grapes cover art
In Vino Duplicitas cover art
Big Macs & Burgundy cover art
The Goode Guide to Wine cover art
The Juice cover art
Obroni and the Chocolate Factory cover art
Take Back Tomorrow cover art
Live Free or Tri cover art
Whiskey Master Class cover art
Oz Clarke’s Story of Wine cover art
Vino Business cover art

Summary

It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold.

In 1985, at a heated auction by Christie’s of London, a 1787 bottle of Château Lafite Bordeaux - one of a cache of bottles unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson - went for $156,000 to a member of the Forbes family. 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 about the bottle 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?

It would take more than two decades for those questions to be answered and involve a gallery of intriguing players - among them Michael Broadbent, the bicycle-riding British auctioneer who speaks of wines as if they are women and staked his reputation on the record-setting sale; Serena Sutcliffe, Broadbent’s elegant archrival, whose palate is covered by a hefty insurance policy; and Bill Koch, the extravagant Florida tycoon bent on exposing the truth about Rodenstock. Pursuing the story from Monticello to London to Zurich to Munich and beyond, Benjamin Wallace also offers a mesmerizing 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, where he literally drank up the culture.

Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange, The Billionaire’s Vinegar is the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries. It is also the debut of an exceptionally powerful new voice in narrative nonfiction.

©2008 Benjamin Wallace (P)2008 Random House Audio
  • Abridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Part detective story, part wine history, this is one juicy tale....as delicious as a true vintage Lafite." ( Business Week)
"Splendid...A delicious mystery that winds through musty European cellars, Jefferson-era France and Monticello, engravers' shops, a nuclear physics lab, rival auction houses and legendary multi-day tastings conducted by the shadowy German who had discovered the Jefferson collection...Ripe for Hollywood." ( USA Today)
"Wallace's depiction of rabid oenophiles staging almost decadent events to swill rare wine, knowingly depleting the reserves, are as much fun as the mystery." ( The New York Daily News)

What listeners say about The Billionaire's Vinegar

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    25
  • 4 Stars
    13
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    16
  • 4 Stars
    10
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good book for wine scandal info for wine geeks.

Once to ready book on the scandal happened in the wine world. It is shockingly true.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wine people are bad

This book just goes to show, the wine trade is full of awful people. Drink well and be wary.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!