Counterfeit Crusader Auctions Cellar

William “Bill” Koch, who amassed a 43,000-bottle cellar of rare wines and launched a crusade of litigation to stamp out sales of counterfeits, consigned nearly 7,800 bottles from his collection to Christie’s, which conducted a three-day auction of the wines in June. The sale raised $28.8 million. The top lot was a methuselah (equal to eight 750ml bottles) of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti 1999, which brought in $275,000.

- BY MITCH FRANK

Koch’s life is the stuff of novels. After his brothers fired him from the company their father built, Koch Industries, Bill left to found Oxbow Energy Corp. In his spare time, he helmed the sailing team that won the 1992 America’s Cup.

In the late 1970s he began collecting wine, buying thousands of bottles a year of collectible Bordeaux. He bought four of the famous “Jefferson Bordeaux,” the bottles unearthed in 1985 by wine dealer Hardy Rodenstock that the German claimed were from the late 18th century and may have been ordered for the sage of Monticello. By the end of 2005, Koch had spent more than $12 million on a 40,000-bottle cellar, including extensive verticals of Pétrus, Mouton-Rothschild, Latour and Lafite.

But when a museum asked for the provenance of his Jefferson Bordeaux bottles, questions were raised on authenticity. This spurred Koch to have his rarest wines inspected, and when he found several fakes, he filed lawsuits against leading auction houses and against Rodenstock and collector Rudy Kurniawan, who was later convicting of counterfeiting wine. Koch says his goal all along was to force auctioneers to clean up their act, and he believes many have done so. He spoke with senior editor Mitch Frank before the sale about consigning the wines and about the memories those bottles hold for him.