Have you heard about this story yet? If you're a wine drinker, you know that the one thing that can stay on the shelves for years and years and actually get better with age is a nice bottle of red wine. Of course, the older the bottle, the more rare it is, and the more expensive it is to buy. Some people spend thousands, so just imagine how much a so-called bottle from Thomas Jefferson's stash went for? (Old Tommy was a huge wine connoisseur.) In 1985, someone from the Forbes family (Bill Koch) paid $156,000 for a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux, said to be from a collection of wine Jefferson stored in France.Being a billionaire, Koch had the money to do the sensible thing -- an investigation to confirm that the wine was linked to Jefferson. His findings found the wine to be founding-father-free, and he sued the seller, Hardy Rodenstock. Now, there's a book coming out called The Billionaire's Vinegar, and Variety reports that Will Smith and the rest of the producers who brought us The Pursuit of Happyness (as well as the upcoming Seven Pounds) have bought the book's rights. This project will compete with HBO, who bought the rights to The Jefferson Bottles, a New Yorker article about the investigation. So far, however, there's no word on who will adapt, direct, or star.
The story, meanwhile, continues. Just this month, Koch's lawsuit was thrown out.
1. Will Smith is doing as well for himself as a producer as he is as an actor. He also produced the charming romcom Saving Face (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384504/), which I just saw last month and have been trying to spread the word about ever since. He seems to want to star in blockbusters, but produce smaller (better?) films. I wonder how common that trend is among the upper echelon actor/producers.
Posted at 1:23PM on Feb 1st 2008 by kevjohn