Hardy Rodenstock

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Hardy Rodenstock (pseudonym; bourgeois: Meinhard Görke; * December 7, 1941 in Marienwerder ; † May 19, 2018 in Oberaudorf ) was an artist manager and music publisher who became known primarily as a wine connoisseur and trader. In several trials, Rodenstock had to defend itself against accusations of adulteration of wines . He was married to the actress Helga Lehner .

Career

Since 1980, Rodenstock has organized high profile wine tastings every year with old and rare wines from its collections, to which friends and celebrities have been invited. These could go on for a whole weekend and were held in gourmet restaurants, hotels or resorts with large quantities of wine donated by Rodenstock. In addition to the mostly German celebrities, wine critics such as Robert Parker , Michael Broadbent and Jancis Robinson were later invited.

Rodenstock (allegedly) had an amazing gift for tracking down the rarest wines in the world. The most famous wine tasting he conducted lasted over a week and took place in 1998 in the Hotel Königshof in Munich. 125 vintages of Château d'Yquem were tasted, the oldest from 1784. The event is documented in book form. In addition to the tastings, his wines were sold at auctions, for example at Christie's with the support of Michael Broadbent. Due to the rarity of the wines, these sometimes reached astronomical prices.

The most famous batch of wines that Rodenstock (allegedly) tracked down (1985) was said to have been bought by the third American President Thomas Jefferson during his time as American Ambassador in Paris (1785-1789). The bottles were (allegedly) found walled in a cellar at an undisclosed address in Paris and (allegedly) offered to Rodenstock. Rodenstock never presented evidence of the origin of the wines. The lot, consisting mainly of wines from the best Bordeaux wineries , was engraved with the initials "Th.J.". A bottle of Château Lafitte (old spelling) from this find was sold at Christie's auction house in December 1985 for £ 105,000.

In the 1990s, public doubts arose for the first time about the authenticity of the bottles that Rodenstock had put into circulation. Serena Sutcliffe, Master of Wine and head of the wine department at Sotheby's, questioned the authenticity of the Imperial (6 liter capacity) bottles from Château Pétrus from 1921, 1924 and other vintages, which had been presented by Rodenstock at tastings. Rodenstock denied the allegations. The doubts were reinforced by statements made by the owner of Pétrus, Christian Moueix, who could not find any evidence of the bottling of this bottle size in the property's documents. He added that at this time Pétrus was an insignificant and unknown good and such bottles are usually only filled with special goods for special customers.

Doubts about the seriousness of Rodenstock had already been raised in this Spiegel article in 1991.

In 1992 the German wine collector Hans-Peter Frericks sued Rodenstock for a bottle of Jefferson Lafite. Frericks had shown by means of radiocarbon dating that the wine was probably made after the Second World War . Rodenstock was convicted in the first instance, before the appeal hearing there was a private settlement.

At the end of 2006, Rodenstock was accused by US billionaire William "Bill" Koch of having forged old wines, especially the so-called Jefferson bottles . On May 19, 2010, a default judgment was issued against Rodenstock in the matter .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 30, 2018 [1]
  2. ↑ August F. Winkler, “Yquem. The Tasting of the Century “ (1999), Verlag Holzhausen, ISBN 3854930119 .
  3. ^ Stephan Draf, Bert Gamerschlag and Jörg Zipprick: Jefferson in the Westerwald . STAR. April 23, 2010. Accessed April 27, 2019.
  4. ↑ Hidden Cellars . In: DER Spiegel No. 44/991 . MIRROR ONLINE. October 28, 1991. Retrieved April 27, 2019. ( Digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fmagazin.spiegel.de%2FEpubDelivery%2Fspiegel%2Fpdf%2F13492439~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~ double-sided% 3D ~ LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D )
  5. ↑ The Jefferson Bottles - How could one collector find so much rare fine wine? (English) (article in "New Yorker").
  6. ↑ Article What's in the bottle on the website of the American weekly magazine Slate (English) .

literature

  • Benjamin Wallace: The truth is in wine! Verlag Tre Torri, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3941641679 .

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Rodenstock, Hardy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish artist manager and music publisher, wine connoisseur and trader
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Marienwerder , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH 19th May 2018
Place of death Oberaudorf