Wine Investment Pioneer Sokolin Dies
The larger-than-life wine merchant introduced the concept of Bordeaux futures to the US wine market.
William Sokolin, a
third-generation wine retailer with a penchant for publicity, who became
famous for breaking a bottle of Thomas Jefferson's wine, died last week
in New York at the age of 85.
"Competitor or not, Bill Sokolin could always be counted upon to be a vocal, creative and sometimes a slightly outrageous member of the New York wine fraternity," said Michael Yurch, the former head of retailer Sherry-Lehmann.
Sokolin's father opened a store in midtown Manhattan immediately
after the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933. Dave's Liquors was
known for its spirits and whiskeys but, as author Benjamin Wallace
recalled in his book "The Billionaire's Vinegar", what "little wine he
carried was plonk".
The younger Sokolin excelled at sports while at Horace Mann, a private prep school, and wound up playing briefly for the farm team of the famed Brooklyn Dodgers baseball club. He went to work for his father when he returned from the army and took over the store in the late '50s. According to his son David Sokolin, who has succeeded him in the family business, he made the "radical decision to focus solely on the sale of top-flight wines".
Bill Sokolin told the East Hampton weekly, Dan's Papers: "I more or less invented the concept of wine investment in the Bordeaux market by the mid-1960s." And indeed he does deserve credit becoming among the first, if not the first, to offer Bordeaux futures to Americans, and stocking his shelves with what he termed investment-grade wines.
Sokolin later wrote two books on the topic. The first, "Liquid Assets: How to Develop an Enjoyable and Profitable Wine Portfolio", was published in 1987 – long before economists and financial advisers posited the same advice. His second book "The Complete Wine Investor" was published in 1998.
Yurch said of his former competitor: "His often bold actions and predictions were almost always noticed by the press, and the attention that they attracted was good for us all. He got New York talking about wine."
He really got New Yorkers talking when he broke a $519,000 bottle of 1787 Château Margaux. Almost 30 years after the 1989 incident, the grumbling can still be heard. Sokolin addressed the incident in his Dan's Papers article.
"It was Château Margaux 1787, with Thomas Jefferson's ThJ signature on the label," he wrote. "Well, I can tell you that night at The Four Seasons restaurant with [Paul] Bocuse, the guest chef, I broke that bottle, not on purpose, but it banged against a waiter's cart and poof, it was gone, kaput.
"Next day I was told by my insurance company that it was not properly insured. I protested! Finally, I had to tell that company it [the accident] would appear in the New York Times the following week. They immediately agreed to pay what they owed me. Ah, the power of the press."
Ron Kapon, managing director emeritus of Acker, Merrall & Condit, the oldest wine merchants in America, said of Bill Sokolin, whom he has known since he was a teenager: "He was the original Donald Trump. He was a big man. He loved publicity. He was the Donald Trump of his era."
Bill Edgerton, a wine appraiser and consultant to collectors and insurance companies, was not in the business when he first met Sokolin. Instead, he was an executive at a large company who became a loyal customer.
"He was a gentleman," Edgerton said of Sokolin. "He was always focused on the customer and really understood customer service. I thought his prices were fair and he was very interested in serving his customers and was very gracious."
In addition to his son David, Sokolin is survived by his widow Gloria, his daughter Deanne Goldstein, son-in-law Glenn Goldstein and two grandchildren, Jeremy and Lilly.
"Competitor or not, Bill Sokolin could always be counted upon to be a vocal, creative and sometimes a slightly outrageous member of the New York wine fraternity," said Michael Yurch, the former head of retailer Sherry-Lehmann.
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The younger Sokolin excelled at sports while at Horace Mann, a private prep school, and wound up playing briefly for the farm team of the famed Brooklyn Dodgers baseball club. He went to work for his father when he returned from the army and took over the store in the late '50s. According to his son David Sokolin, who has succeeded him in the family business, he made the "radical decision to focus solely on the sale of top-flight wines".
Bill Sokolin told the East Hampton weekly, Dan's Papers: "I more or less invented the concept of wine investment in the Bordeaux market by the mid-1960s." And indeed he does deserve credit becoming among the first, if not the first, to offer Bordeaux futures to Americans, and stocking his shelves with what he termed investment-grade wines.
Sokolin later wrote two books on the topic. The first, "Liquid Assets: How to Develop an Enjoyable and Profitable Wine Portfolio", was published in 1987 – long before economists and financial advisers posited the same advice. His second book "The Complete Wine Investor" was published in 1998.
Yurch said of his former competitor: "His often bold actions and predictions were almost always noticed by the press, and the attention that they attracted was good for us all. He got New York talking about wine."
He really got New Yorkers talking when he broke a $519,000 bottle of 1787 Château Margaux. Almost 30 years after the 1989 incident, the grumbling can still be heard. Sokolin addressed the incident in his Dan's Papers article.
"It was Château Margaux 1787, with Thomas Jefferson's ThJ signature on the label," he wrote. "Well, I can tell you that night at The Four Seasons restaurant with [Paul] Bocuse, the guest chef, I broke that bottle, not on purpose, but it banged against a waiter's cart and poof, it was gone, kaput.
"Next day I was told by my insurance company that it was not properly insured. I protested! Finally, I had to tell that company it [the accident] would appear in the New York Times the following week. They immediately agreed to pay what they owed me. Ah, the power of the press."
Ron Kapon, managing director emeritus of Acker, Merrall & Condit, the oldest wine merchants in America, said of Bill Sokolin, whom he has known since he was a teenager: "He was the original Donald Trump. He was a big man. He loved publicity. He was the Donald Trump of his era."
Bill Edgerton, a wine appraiser and consultant to collectors and insurance companies, was not in the business when he first met Sokolin. Instead, he was an executive at a large company who became a loyal customer.
"He was a gentleman," Edgerton said of Sokolin. "He was always focused on the customer and really understood customer service. I thought his prices were fair and he was very interested in serving his customers and was very gracious."
In addition to his son David, Sokolin is survived by his widow Gloria, his daughter Deanne Goldstein, son-in-law Glenn Goldstein and two grandchildren, Jeremy and Lilly.
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