Customer Reviews
The Arrogance of Wealth - By: Jeremy Watson, 16 Oct 2008 
Having spent 50 years at the sharp end of the Wine Trade I found it fascinating to read about the ephereal aspect which one only encountered through reputation & the more elite journals of the business.
Apart from being saddened by the discrediting of one much loved personalityin the trade I enjoyed the discomfort of the exposure of a well known charletan & the unveiling of the enormous vanity of his hugely wealthy clients whose judgement deserted them when social acceptance was the carrot. To be the owner of a bottle of wine more than 230 years old with ownership attributed to Thomas Jefferson but without any clear provenance distorted the sensibilities they would regularly apply to their own businesses.
These bottles included the most expensive ever sold, which was a direct consequence of the self same vanity of the purchasers. But it was an enormous confidence trick that was compounded by the greed of the subject's clients as they increasingly fell under the spell cast by the opportunity to own a priceless, but also probably worthless bottle of wine.
When Money Isn't Enough - By: taking a rest, 13 May 2008 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 expertsin 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 charlatanin this tale is a master at exploiting the wishes of collectors & even the experts that should know better. Or perhaps that do know better & just let their own egos persuade them thatin spite of zero evidence the product is real, & 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 & its dimmer moments, there is a great deal of information on wine production, wine history & enough wine tasting descriptions for the most avid connoisseur. Or if you find the whole field a bit pretentious & 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.
