Hardy Rodenstock
Hardy Rodenstock (pseudonym; civil Meinhard Goerke, born December 7, 1941 in Marie Werder, German Reich ) is a former artist manager and music publisher who is primarily known as a wine connoisseur and dealer. In several processes Rodenstock had to defend themselves against the charge of falsification of wines.
Career
Since 1980, Rodenstock has hosted high-profile annual wine tasting with old and rare wines from its collections, including friends and celebrities were invited. This could go on for a whole weekend and were held in gourmet restaurants, hotels or resorts with large quantities of wine, donated by Rodenstock. Besides the mostly German celebrities later wine critics such as Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson, Michael Broadbent or were invited.
Rodenstock had ( allegedly) to track down an amazing gift that rarest wines in the world. The most famous wine tasting, which he carried out, took more than a week in August / September 1998 and was held in Munich in the hotel court. It transitions 125 years of Château d' Yquem were tasted, the eldest of 1784th The event is documented in book form. In addition to tasting its wines were sold at auctions, for example, at Christie's with the support of Michael Broadbent. Due to the rarity of the wines achieved this partly astronomical prices.
The most famous game of wines that Rodenstock ( allegedly) tracked (1985 ), was allegedly purchased from the third U.S. President Thomas Jefferson during his time as an American ambassador in Paris. The bottles were ( allegedly) built into a basement found at a undisclosed address in Paris, and ( allegedly) been offered Rodenstock. Evidence for the origin of the wines were never presented by Meinhard Goerke ( Rodenstock ). The game, consisting mainly of wines from the best wineries of Bordeaux, had an engraved with the initials " Th.J. ". A bottle of Château Lafitte ( old spelling ) from this Fund was sold at auction in December 1985 for £ 105,000 at Christie's auction house.
In the 1990s, for the first time appeared on public doubts about the authenticity of the " Hardy Rodenstock " put into circulation bottles. Serena Sutcliffe, Master of Wine and head of the wine department of Sotheby's doubted the authenticity of the Imperial ( 6 liter ) bottles of Chateau Petrus from the years 1921, 1924 and other vintages that 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 be found in the documents of the goods no evidence relating to the making of these bottles size. He added that Pétrus at this time was an insignificant and unknown good and such bottles are filled usually only of particular goods for special customers.
Doubts about the seriousness of " Hardy Rodenstock " had been raised as early as 1991 in this SPIEGEL article.
In 1992 the German wine collector Hans -Peter Frericks Rodenstock sued because of a bottle of Jefferson Lafite. Frericks had can be detected via a radio- carbon dating, that the wine was probably made after the 2nd World War. Rodenstock was sentenced in the first instance, before the appeal hearing, there was a private comparison.
The end of 2006 Rodenstock was accused by the U.S. billionaire William " Bill" Koch, old wines to have particular forged the so-called Jefferson bottles. On 19 May 2010 was issued in the matter a default judgment against Rodenstock.