The collector of wine rarities and dealer Hardy Rodenstock died on 19 May at the age of 76 after a serious illness. The former artist manager and music publisher Rodenstock - his civil name was Meinhard Görke - was considered one of the most dazzling figures on the wine scene. He became famous for his rarity tastings, for example at the luxury hotel Arlberg Hospiz in St. Anton or in 1998 at the Hotel Königshof in Munich, where he opened 125 vintages of Château d'Yquem. The oldest dates back to 1784 and these tastings attracted wine lovers and collectors from all over the world.
He generated the greatest response worldwide in 1985 through the approximately 30 bottles of 1787 Lafitte (Château Lafite-Rothschild), Yquem and Branne-Mouton (later Mouton Rothschild) with the engraved initials "Th. J.", which he claims he found in a cellar in Paris. They are supposed to stand for the American president Thomas Jefferson, who was ambassador in Paris at that time. At the auction of a bottle of Lafite with the initials in the auction house Christie`s the price of 420 000 D-Mark was achieved. This was the highest price ever achieved for a bottle of wine.
But soon doubts about the authenticity of the Jefferson bottles began to arise. The American billionaire William I. Koch, one of his buyers, tried for many years to take Rodenstock to court. But he could not prove that the four "Th.J." bottles he had bought - and which proved to be counterfeit - came from Rodenstock's stock. In the 1990s, doubts grew about the authenticity of his old wines, for example about Imperial bottles of Pétrus from the 1920s and 1930s.
Throughout his life, Rodenstock had vehemently denied the allegations of falsification. Many media reports have appeared about him and the Jefferson bottles, as well as several TV documentaries; the film rights were also sold. In his last years, Hardy Rodenstock had lived in Kitzbühel, where he was firmly interwoven with society. He was already buried there last weekend.
(uka)