About book The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery Of The World's Most Expensive Bottle Of Wine (2008)
Surprisingly engaging, given that it's mostly names of people, names of wines, accounts of tastings, and science. Well, actually, there's much more to it. Among the mysteries explored: Did the bottles dubbed The Jefferson Bottles really belong to Thomas Jefferson? Are many old wines actually forgeries? Do wine experts and enthusiasts know what they're talking about when they talk about wine? The one question only obliquely examined (if at all): Why does wine fascinate us so much? But the excellently narrated audiobook was abridged, so maybe the print edition looked into that conundrum. Or perhaps not. I love reading nonfiction books about collectors and experts as well as the history of why one thing or another gained great popularity. Also there's something fascinating to me about people who have enough money that they can create some of these great collections. The Billionaire's Vinegar is full of people who are in love with wine, wanting to own it, wanting to drink it and those who sell it. At the heart of the book is a collection of wines that apparently belonged to Thomas Jefferson and one bottle that was the most expensive bottle sold at auction. There's a great deal in this book in terms of detail but not a lot of answers about the bottle and the man who found it. That was the only part of it that was unsatisfying as the book reads like a detailed mystery, identifying all the players and possibilities of fraud and showing some later fraud. Yet when it comes to the featured bottles, no one knows for certain, which is fascinating in its own way.I would recommend this book to anyone interested in wine, history and how wine became as big a business as it has.
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Super interesting but VERY in-depth. Lots of dates and facts and dates and facts...you get the idea.
—Kicollins
