Koch suit against Christie’s claims wines are counterfeit

Part-time Palm Beach resident William Koch filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Manhattan federal court against Christie’s International, alleging the London-based auction house sold him counterfeit wine.
In his complaint, Koch says that four bottles of wine touted as being owned by Thomas Jefferson that he purchased for $500,000 turned out to be fakes, according to news reports. The suit alleges that Christie’s “knows how to identify counterfeit wine,” according to the news reports.
In 2005, Koch bought a 1787 Lafite Bordeaux with the founding father’s initials engraved into the bottle and three other bottles said to be from Jefferson’s collection, according to the New York Daily News. The suit claims Christie’s knew there were problems because a Jefferson scholar raised “serious doubts” in 1986.
In 2006, Koch underwrote a million-dollar probe into whether the wine’s provenance was a fraud and sued German wine dealer Hardy Rodenstock, who supplied the wine to auction houses, according to new reports.
A spokesman for Christie’s called the allegations in the complaint ‘incorrect,” according to Bloomberg News.
The suit asks the court to prohibit the auction house from selling any wines bottled before 1962.
Koch is a collector of rare wines and owns one of the world’s finest collections of French wines.
He is also the founder of Oxbow Group, energy, real estate and e-commerce businesses, and a past winner of the America’s Cup.