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The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine | 
 enlarge | Author: Benjamin Wallace
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group, Division of Random House Inc
Category: Book
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £7.04
You Save: £7.95 (53%)
New (16) Used (6) from £7.04
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 22216
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307338770
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.2223
EAN: 9780307338778
ASIN: 0307338770
Publication Date: August 29, 2008 (In 36 Days)
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
When Money Isn't Enough May 13, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Mr. Wallace has produced a great read that is interesting from a historical prospective while it harpoons the very wealthy whose pursuit of money is no longer satisfying. Nope, these folks have to pursue a type of collectable that they cannot have any provenance for, which experts in the field can only hope to guess at what the bottle contains. Wine that is a century younger than the bottle on the book cover might at best be "recognizable as wine", unless of course it has become an ingredient for salad dressing.
The central charlatan in this tale is a master at exploiting the wishes of collectors and even the experts that should know better. Or perhaps that do know better and just let their own egos persuade them that in spite of zero evidence the product is real, and worse, valid sources that explain there is nothing to suggest the wine's legitimacy, never slow down. On with the auction!
The book is not just about human nature and its dimmer moments, there is a great deal of information on wine production, wine history and enough wine tasting descriptions for the most avid connoisseur. Or if you find the whole field a bit pretentious and tedious you might still be entertained by the likes of what follows "the art of drinking the very oldest rarities required an extra degree of connoisseurship-almost a kind of necrophilia".
I look forward to many more from the pen of Mr. Wallace. This is a very good offering that should find a wide audience whether you are an avid wine drinker or you feel the 18th Amendment was a great idea.
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