from “a controlled contagion.” Only after exiting did he and Yablon discover whom they’d been bidding against.
“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to bid?” Yablon asked Shanken. “We could have talked.”
Some people had followed them out of the room, curious to learn just who these men were, and a crowd gathered. Journalists’ questions focused on the importance of this bottle, which had been earmarked for the author of the Declaration of Independence. Suddenly, Kip was in the position of having to explain and find meaning in a purchase that had begun as a quotidian chore. “It’s more than a bottle of wine,” he answered, when a reporter suggested his bid had been exorbitant. “It’s a piece of history.” He said the Forbes family had no intention of opening the bottle. He planned to celebrate by drinking a rather younger Lafite.
With the news about to go out on the wires, Kip figured he had better call his father. “Well, Pop,” he told Malcolm, upon reaching him in New Jersey, “I did what you told me.” When Kip said what he’d spent, his father’s reaction was of the Mason-Dixon variety. Malcolm dropped the phone. When he recovered himself, he was furious. Kip held the receiver away from his ear, but Malcolm was still audible. He demanded to speak to Yablon: The guy who was supposed to take care of the money had allowed this insanity? Gladly, Kip handed the phone to Dr. No, who dutifully took his turn in the telephonic woodshed.
The idea was to fly the bottle straight to New York in time for the gallery opening that evening, but now Christie’s was confronted with something it had never faced before—a bottle of wine that had sold for so much it would require an export license. A museum was also needed to certify that the bottle wasn’t a national treasure, and discussion ensued as to which museum could most quickly provide this service. Broadbent’s right-hand man set about making the arrangements, while Broadbent called Rodenstock to tell him the news. Like Broadbent and Forbes, the German was taken aback by the amount. While waiting for the paperwork to come through, Kip chatted with Yablon and Broadbent. Ever the salesman, Broadbent wondered if they mightn’t be interested in other bottles from the cache.
By the time the Victoria and Albert Museum provided the certification, it was nighttime, and there was no way Kip and Yablon were going to make it to the party in New York in time. Export license in hand, they were driven to the
Capitalist Tool,
idling on the tarmac at Heathrow. With an eight-hour flight ahead, they put the bottle to bed in the plane’s stateroom—swathed in velvet, nestled inside the carry bag, surrounded by pillows, and bound loosely to the mattress with sheets. Then they settled in for the flight, talking about how angry Malcolm was.
At Newark Airport, the head of Forbes security helped them through customs. They braced for Malcolm, but by the time they saw him, the following day, his attitude had shifted. While worrying that he would look like a horse’s ass—a fear that had seldom vexed his free-spending life—he had gone on the TV program
Adam Smith’s Money World,
ostensibly to talk about the economy. Inevitably asked about the purchase that was making news around the world, Forbes had grumbled, “The Forbes family would be far better off if Mr. Jefferson had drunk the damn thing.”
Now he was thankful. Reporters were calling in droves, and it was dawning on Malcolm that the Forbeses had inadvertently staged, as Yablon would later put it, a “masterstroke…the publicity coup of the century.” Marvin Shanken, in his London hotel room, received a call telling him that news reports of the Forbeses’ record purchase mentioned that the underbidder was the publisher of
Wine Spectator
. The PR was nice, but mainly Shanken was relieved to have escaped without the bottle. Kip Forbes had a hard time believing this. “I think at the end [Shanken]
“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to bid?” Yablon asked Shanken. “We could have talked.”
Some people had followed them out of the room, curious to learn just who these men were, and a crowd gathered. Journalists’ questions focused on the importance of this bottle, which had been earmarked for the author of the Declaration of Independence. Suddenly, Kip was in the position of having to explain and find meaning in a purchase that had begun as a quotidian chore. “It’s more than a bottle of wine,” he answered, when a reporter suggested his bid had been exorbitant. “It’s a piece of history.” He said the Forbes family had no intention of opening the bottle. He planned to celebrate by drinking a rather younger Lafite.
With the news about to go out on the wires, Kip figured he had better call his father. “Well, Pop,” he told Malcolm, upon reaching him in New Jersey, “I did what you told me.” When Kip said what he’d spent, his father’s reaction was of the Mason-Dixon variety. Malcolm dropped the phone. When he recovered himself, he was furious. Kip held the receiver away from his ear, but Malcolm was still audible. He demanded to speak to Yablon: The guy who was supposed to take care of the money had allowed this insanity? Gladly, Kip handed the phone to Dr. No, who dutifully took his turn in the telephonic woodshed.
The idea was to fly the bottle straight to New York in time for the gallery opening that evening, but now Christie’s was confronted with something it had never faced before—a bottle of wine that had sold for so much it would require an export license. A museum was also needed to certify that the bottle wasn’t a national treasure, and discussion ensued as to which museum could most quickly provide this service. Broadbent’s right-hand man set about making the arrangements, while Broadbent called Rodenstock to tell him the news. Like Broadbent and Forbes, the German was taken aback by the amount. While waiting for the paperwork to come through, Kip chatted with Yablon and Broadbent. Ever the salesman, Broadbent wondered if they mightn’t be interested in other bottles from the cache.
By the time the Victoria and Albert Museum provided the certification, it was nighttime, and there was no way Kip and Yablon were going to make it to the party in New York in time. Export license in hand, they were driven to the
Capitalist Tool,
idling on the tarmac at Heathrow. With an eight-hour flight ahead, they put the bottle to bed in the plane’s stateroom—swathed in velvet, nestled inside the carry bag, surrounded by pillows, and bound loosely to the mattress with sheets. Then they settled in for the flight, talking about how angry Malcolm was.
At Newark Airport, the head of Forbes security helped them through customs. They braced for Malcolm, but by the time they saw him, the following day, his attitude had shifted. While worrying that he would look like a horse’s ass—a fear that had seldom vexed his free-spending life—he had gone on the TV program
Adam Smith’s Money World,
ostensibly to talk about the economy. Inevitably asked about the purchase that was making news around the world, Forbes had grumbled, “The Forbes family would be far better off if Mr. Jefferson had drunk the damn thing.”
Now he was thankful. Reporters were calling in droves, and it was dawning on Malcolm that the Forbeses had inadvertently staged, as Yablon would later put it, a “masterstroke…the publicity coup of the century.” Marvin Shanken, in his London hotel room, received a call telling him that news reports of the Forbeses’ record purchase mentioned that the underbidder was the publisher of
Wine Spectator
. The PR was nice, but mainly Shanken was relieved to have escaped without the bottle. Kip Forbes had a hard time believing this. “I think at the end [Shanken]
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