The Wine Forgery That Cost a Billionaire $35 Million — And Nobody Went to Jail

Oxford Montessori School is now Oxford Millwood School. A new name, the same genuine care, academic ambition and belief in every child. Set within a beautiful rural campus, just 20 minutes from Oxford City Centre. Our small classes, personalised pathways and strong send expertise give pupils the support, challenge and confidence they need to succeed, especially those who may not have thrived in larger settings. Find out more at our Open Day on May the 21st. Search Oxford Millwood School Open Day. Changes in sexual performance are more common than most people realise and support doesn't need to feel awkward. With MedExpress, everything happens privately online. Start by completing a short consultation reviewed by UK registered clinicians. If eligible, treatment is delivered discreetly to your home with ongoing support whenever you need it. You're not alone in this. Visit medexpress.co.uk slash podcast to learn more. Imagine if today was the day your idea changed someone's life. Imagine if you could help someone pay for university, help your community build a new playground or help a child make it to that dream competition. With GoFundMe, it's all possible. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Every week, ordinary people meet their goals and do extraordinary things. Your ideas matter. GoFundMe isn't just for emergencies. Want to raise money for your kids' football team or raise funds for a small business, a charity or event? GoFundMe helps you turn ideas into reality and help adds up. Fundraisers you start for someone else raise up to five times more. So think right now, who could use your help? Don't wait for someone else to bring change. Today, start your fundraiser in just minutes at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com to start your fundraiser. GoFundMe.com. This is a commercial message brought to you by GoFundMe. I'm in the kitchen with Charlie Bigham. So what have we got here, Charlie? My brand new pan-fried pad Thai noodles. Noodles? But your Mr Fish Pie Guy? Guilty. And while ovens rule at roasting, the pan is king of noodling. Whether it's pad Thai, yaki sabre or laxer, finding that perfect texture is a bottomless noodle rabbit hole. But all I have to do is stir it in the pan for six minutes, right? Bingo! Try the new Charlie Bigham's Asian Pan-Fried Noodle Range, handmade in my kitchen. Pan-fried in yours. The year is 1784. Thomas Jefferson has just helped write the Declaration of Independence. He has served as Governor of Virginia. He is about to become the third President of the United States. But right now, he is standing in a vineyard in Bordeaux, France. And he is completely obsessed. Jefferson had arrived in Paris as America's Minister to France. And within weeks, the man who helped build a nation had a new mission, wine. He toured the great chateau of Burgundy. He walked the rows of Bordeaux. He tasted wines so old, so extraordinary, that he wrote home about them the way other men wrote about falling in love. He ordered 250 bottles of Chateau Lafites. He shipped Sauternes and Champagne to George Washington himself. He stocked the White House cellar. He advised Adams, Madison Monroe, all of them on what to pour at state dinners. Over three decades, Jefferson's personal records show he purchased 20,000 bottles of wine. 20,000 bottles. The man had a problem. Now, fast forward 200 years. It is 1985, Paris, France, a building in the Marais district is being renovated. Workers knocked down a wall. Behind it, a hidden cellar. And inside that cellar, bottles, old bottles, dark glass, no labels, but etched into the glass in a spindly hand a year, a Chateau and two initials, TJ. The man who found them was a German music producer turned wine dealer named Hardy Roddenstock. He didn't say who had sold him the wines. He didn't reveal the address of the building. He didn't disclose exactly how many bottles he found, but he had a story in the wine world desperately wanted to believe it. In 1985, Roddenstock electrified the wine world when he claimed to have discovered a cache of 18th century wines once owned by Thomas Jefferson. One bottle, a 1987 Chateau Lafitte went to auction at Christie's in London. His auctioneer, Michael Broadpen, wielding the hammer, Malcolm Forbes bought it for 156,000. Still to this day, the record price for a single bottle of wine. American billionaire Bill Koch saw that bottle sell. He had to have one. He tracked down four more TJ bottles and bought them. Then in 2005, he decided to display them at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. And that's when he made a phone call to Monticello, Jefferson's home in Virginia, to get the bottles authenticated. Koch's staff approached the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello. The Foundation's curator replied that based on Jefferson's records, they did not think the bottles had been in Jefferson's possession. Jefferson, who kept obsessive encyclopedic records of every bottle he ever bought, had no record of these bottles ever. Koch hired a former FBI agent to investigate. He hired forensics experts. When they examined the initials etched into the glass, they concluded the engravings had been made with an electric power tool, which would not have been possible in the 18th century. A Dremel drill. Someone had faked Thomas Jefferson's initials with a Dremel drill. But here's the full pour. Koch spent over $35 million tracking down who sold him those bottles. He sued Rodin Stock. He sued Christie's. He sued auction houses across two continents. Rodin Stock, whose real name turned out to be Minert Nourke, refused to set foot in an American courtroom. A judge ruled against him in absentia. He never paid a cent. Koch's investigators found a label for a juror in Germany who had crafted fake labels for Rodin Stock for years, printing thousands of them, and the bottle that Malcolm Forbes paid $156,000 for? The one that started it all? Jefferson never lived anywhere near the Mont-Rey district when he was in Paris. The bottle had no label and no secure provenance. The greatest presidential wine collection ever discovered never existed. Thomas Jefferson spent 30 years in a fortune he didn't have, chasing the perfect bottle of French wine. Two centuries later, someone used his name to do exactly the same thing to everyone else. The front label never tells you that. Pour something good tonight. You've earned it. That is the back label story. I'm in the kitchen with Charlie Bigham. So what have we got here, Charlie? My brand new pan-fried pad thai noodles. Noodles? But you're Mr Fish Pie Guy. Guilty. And while ovens rule at roasting, the pan is king of noodling. Whether it's pad thai, yakisoba, or laxer, finding that perfect texture is a bottomless noodle rabbit hole. But all I have to do is stir it in the pan for six minutes, right? Bingo! Try the new Charlie Bigham's Asian Pan-Fry Noodle Range, handmade in my kitchen. Pan-fried in yours.