KEY POINTS:
Three of the most expensive bottles of wine ever to be sold, each one worth more than $280,000, are at the centre of an FBI and US Justice Department investigation into the international trade in vintage wine after allegations of fraud. The inquiry also focuses on the role played by Christie's auction house in London.
The investigation will examine Christie's relationship with a controversial German wine merchant, Hardy Rodenstock, a former pop promoter who has a reputation for unearthing rare vintage wines that sell for huge sums. Rodenstock had a close relationship with a director of Christie's who was present at many of his exclusive vintage wine tastings.
In December 1985, Christie's sold one of Rodenstock's wines to US billionaire Malcolm Forbes for the record price of £105,000.
Rodenstock claimed that the bottle, a 1787 Lafite, belonged to Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. Rodenstock said the bottle, which had the initials "Th.J" engraved on it, had been discovered in a cellar in Paris. Despite never revealing the location of the cellar or from whom he had bought the bottle, Christie's supported Rodenstock's claim in the auction catalogue.
When Lindsay Hamilton, a wine dealer who runs Farr Vintners, turned up in New York three years after Forbes' purchase, the three bottles he delivered to a Park Ave address in 1988 were allegedly from the same Parisian cellar found by Rodenstock and had also belonged to Jefferson.
It was this information that persuaded the Park Ave resident, William Koch, a US tycoon who is the president of the Oxbow Corporation, a global mining and energy business, to stump up close to US$500,000 for the wine.
Cut to 2005 and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts was mounting a display of Koch's private collection, which included paintings by Monet and Degas. Before exhibiting his Jefferson wine collection, the museum wanted proof of its authenticity. A call by Koch's team to the Jefferson Memorial Foundation in Virginia raised questions about the wine's provenance. Jefferson kept records of all the wines he ordered, and there was nothing on the bottles Rodenstock claimed he had discovered.
Believing he had been duped, Koch hired a team of investigators including a nuclear physicist who examined the molecular content of the glass.
Koch's team believes the engraving on the bottle was fake, made with a modern high-speed diamond drill.
His lawsuit against Rodenstock states: "[Our] investigation has proven that Rodenstock's most celebrated wine 'discovery' ... is a hoax."
An affidavit signed by a former Scotland Yard detective, Richard Marston, claims he interviewed a British-based collector who had also bought a Jefferson bottle through Christie's.
Marston says the buyer was told the wine had been stolen by the Nazis when they occupied Paris and the story about the wines being found in a French cellar was to avoid the consequences of selling "looted Nazi art".
In a fax to Koch last May, Rodenstock said the bottles were "absolutely genuine".
He said he had bought the Jefferson wines from a man "who at the time was about 65 years old. I don't even know if the seller ... is still alive today".
Koch's team claims that, with such doubt over the provenance of the wine, Christie's was wrong to vouch for them without further research.
A spokesman for Christie's said: "Christie's can confirm that the subpoena which was received by Christie's in December was focused on the activities of a particular client, and did not focus on the activities ... of Christie's itself. We have been co-operating with federal officials in their investigation on the matter and will continue to do so."
- Observer
