Wine madness, continued

A month or so back there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about the boom in advanced security systems for wine cellars. Never got around to posting the thought, but my immediate reaction was how things have changed in a few short decades, from buiding fallout shelters to safeguarding one's stocks of overpriced plonk.

As usual, however, it's human nature to miss the threat within -- and the world of wine is no exception:

Many in Sausalito still can't believe who is at the center of the tale -- a man so woven into the civic fabric that he called himself "Joe Sausalito" in his slice-of-Marin-life newspaper column. He was a gregarious city commissioner with influential friends, and an oenophile who belonged to the local wine society -- that is, until the society's 1959 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild vanished.

Police say Mark Anderson abused the trust he built, starting a wine storage firm for collectors and then selling 8,000 bottles out the back door to fund a lavish lifestyle. Facing embezzlement charges, police say, Anderson kept right on selling -- then really fouled things up when he tried to cover his tracks.

Federal prosecutors recently accused Anderson of setting an October 2005 fire at a warehouse in Vallejo where he rented space for the wine. The flames spread through the building, consuming 6 million bottles owned by 92 Napa Valley wineries and 43 collectors. Their value: $250 million.

Posted by David on June 2, 2007 2:54 PM