zachys

William Koch Alleges Another Wine Fraud

I just mentioned him yesterday and now William Koch, the deep-pocketed wine collector who made news earlier this year when he sued German collector Hardy Rodenstock over wines owned by Thomas Jefferson that proved to be counterfeit, is on the warpath again. The Wall Street Journal reports that Koch filed a lawsuit in New York City in regards to a 2005 Zachys auction where he spent $3.7 million on what he thought were rare Bordeaux wines but later turned out to be fake. He says he was led to buy the wine by the collector, Eric Greenberg, who allegedly knew that some of the bottles were fakes because he had already commissioned the head of Christie's wine department and another wine expert to check them out. The suit also says that Greenberg himself had received a settlement from the wine merchant who had sold him the wines. The lawsuit doesn't says that Zachys knew the wine was counterfeit.

Decanter also reports that Eric Greenberg was the consignor behind Acker Merrall & Condit's recent "The Man With the Golden Cellar" auction which brought in $15,563,359. Greenberg's lawyer says the lawsuit charges are false and the Greenberg would never sell wine he knew to be counterfeit. Still, the buyers from that most recent auction have to be a bit unnerved.

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Tags: counterfeit wine, CounterfeitWine, lawsuit, william koch, WilliamKoch, wine, wine bottles, wine fraud, zachys

Montrachet Sells Off The Cellar

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Auctions

There have been a lot of exciting wine auctions this spring. The Spring auction from Zachy's in New York on May 11 gives you the chance to own wines from the cellar at Montrachet, a wine-oriented restaurant in New York which closed last year but may yet reopen at a later date. Meanwhile they are selling off a bunch of their cellar. Decanter reports that the 536 lots Zachy's hopes to sell include 383 of red and white Burgundy, ranging through the 1980s, 1990s and the current decade. The restaurant had been open since 1985, plenty of time to stock up on a wealth of treasures. The Zachy's website has details of the lots and the absentee bidder form.

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Tags: auction, burgundy, montrachet, red wine, white wine, wine, zachys