17

THE DUST SETTLES

Sydney, Australia
August, 1999

And so, loaded up with stories like that, among all the other crazy tales of Tbilisi, we got back to work in our everyday world. We had enough dinner party tales to last a lifetime from those few days in Georgia.

From my point of view, the work was just beginning. Having been there and actually seen them, touched them and even tasted some of them, I had to now, somehow, from my desk in Sydney, 13,500 km away, get 40,000 bottles of the world’s rarest wines out of that cellar.

I had barely dropped my bags inside the front door before I was on the phone and computer, trying to firm up our potential purchase.

George was obviously equally keen. He had sent his first email within a day of my return home, more or less asking when he could expect us to confirm we would like to buy the cellar.

I wrote back to say that we had a few issues to work through at our end, but to stay tuned.

The next call I had to make was to Neville. My answering machine at home had been busy while I was away and in the last few days there had been two calls from Neville.

His voice on the messages had been friendly and enthusiastic.

The first one said, ‘Hi, John, Neville Rhodes here on Tuesday 22 June. Just wondering if you’re back and how the trip went? I’m very interested to hear whether the cellar passed muster for you and Kevin. Talk soon.’

The second message was from two days later: ‘John, Neville again. I guess you’re not back yet. Just wondering if we could chat about the bottles and whether you think they’re authentic. Hope all is well and talk soon. Cheers.’

Then, the day before I got back: ‘Hi, John. This is Paula Stanford. You might remember me from the meeting we had in Neville Rhodes’s office, to brief you on the cellar in Tbilisi. Neville and I would like to organise a meeting, if possible, as soon as you’re back. Please call me through Neville’s office. Thank you.’

Well, it would seem Neville is still an energetic partner in the venture, I thought, as I rang back. Of course, I got a personal assistant who promised to pass on a message.

I didn’t hear back for a day, so I emailed him, writing,

Hi Neville, it’s John Baker here. I just landed back in town and have some stories to tell. Yes, we have some wines to discuss and the interesting time we had with your Georgian friends. I even had a bath. Let’s have a chat when we can, to discuss the next steps. Talk soon.’

I rang Harry and told him the brief story, of how we had managed to audit most of the cellar and hadn’t found any faults. I imagined him rubbing his hands together with glee like a pantomime villain on the other end of the phone. After all, money was in the air.

But not quite.

As is my way, I cleared the whiteboard in my office and wrote notes to visualise what lay ahead.

US$1 million, I wrote. Then a tick.

I wasn’t actually concerned about the investment of such a large amount. Between four of us and with almost certain confirmation that the bottles weren’t fake, we knew we’d sell the entire cellar for much more than the cost price, plus expenses. Kevin was doing a rough valuation now that we were confident that the cellar list was mostly accurate. He’d get back to me soon.

I then wrote: Give George the money? And a cross.

Laughing and friendly as he’d been, I could hardly afford to trust George any more than I had to, or Tamaz and the other executives. We obviously couldn’t transfer US$1 million to them in the hope that they would hand over the wine. The contents of that cellar and the executives of the winery could vanish as mysteriously as the cash.

I wrote a question mark next to the cross and decided to come back to it.

Next up was: Title to the wine?

Who actually, legally owned the cellar and all the bottles? We still weren’t sure, despite George’s bluster. Did Tamaz and Revaz have shares? Did others have a stake? Before we could do a deal, we needed to clarify that George had a legal right to sell it. It bothered me that I still wasn’t clear on this, even after spending a week there and all those long, boring hours in pointless meetings about future development and ownership of the winery. Another question mark went up on the whiteboard.

Underneath, I wrote: Customs?

George’s words at the airport came back to me. ‘Don’t worry, John. I fix it, I fix it. We can fix all that.’ His alleged uncle within the government who could make any customs issues go away, apparently. Even for what might be construed as historic and significant bottles. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what George meant by ‘fixing it’. This needed clarity. A third large question mark.

Finally, I wrote: Men in suits. Underlined. Twice.

This was my nightmare scenario and, strangely, it could only play out if we paid George the money and everything went well.

I stood back from the whiteboard and ran through it in my head: George’s mysterious parliamentary uncle has a word and actually does convince Georgian customs that 40,000 bottles of old wine leaving the country is totally okay. Superb. Hypothetically, because we wouldn’t actually move the wine this way, but say we managed to pack and cart the bottles safely to London or New York. They’re in place with Sotheby’s or whoever, and ready to be auctioned. Our auction house runs a major marketing campaign and a large, rich crowd turns up on the big day, cheque books at the ready to buy these famous, rare, historic wines. Stalin’s wine! Nicholas II’s wine! Even Alexander III’s wine!

Kevin, Neville, Harry and I are standing there, clinking glasses and moments away from watching the wines slowly go under the auctioneer’s gavel when some men in suits appear and announce they are from the Georgian government, in charge of cultural affairs and historic artefacts. They announce we have no legal right to sell the wine. They declare that the wine is not actually just bottles of wine; it is a cultural treasure and they therefore have a legal right, according to Georgian law, to claim it for the state. In reality, maybe we could split hairs on this point, because really the cellar was whisked out of Russia by Stalin, making the wines more Russian than Georgian, but that would hardly carry the day when push came to shove. Hell, maybe it would be Soviet men in suits showing up and delivering a cultural heritage speech.

What does the auction house do? Either way, the auction is cancelled, and by this stage we are all a lot of money out of pocket.

I mentally chewed on this for a while, as I stared at the words I had written. Men in suits.

I realised it all came down to title. We still had an amazing collection of wine with questionable ownership. We simply had to clear it up and be squeaky-clean before we could approach any of the major auction houses. George had to prove, legally and unequivocally, that the wine was his to sell and that Georgian customs authorities would definitely permit the wines to leave the country. The government needed to agree to our purchase, before we would pay a cent or attempt to lift another bottle out of that cave.

A couple of days later, Neville, Harry, Kevin and I met in Neville’s shiny office with the big view and I ran through the same list for the partners. Beforehand, over the phone, I had given both Neville and Harry a brief outline of how things went in Tbilisi, so when we arrived at the office, it was all handshakes and backslaps and celebrations. I felt like the Apollo 11 crew arriving home. Neville in particular was all smiles, telling us what a great job we’d done, and how excited he was to hear our findings.

But now, as I laid out my list of concerns, the mood became slightly more circumspect.

‘It still all comes down to the bottles and whether they’re real,’ said Harry.

‘We need to do the chemical tests,’ agreed Kevin. ‘We would like to consult some of the châteaux whose wines are in the cellar, and particularly Yquem, as so much of the value is in the Yquems, if they will talk to us. But every indication is that they’re legitimate.’

‘Do we need to pay the money up front for the Georgians to release the bottles for the sale?’ Harry asked.

‘Well,’ Neville said. ‘John, as you have just found out, it’s a bit the law of the gun over there. George will be thinking that if he and his partners have the bottles, then they’re theirs. If we want them, we need to give them money. There’s no trust involved in this. It will be a transaction for US dollars, in their minds.’

‘But John has made it clear that we can’t be sure we would receive the bottles or be sure of being able to sell them once we hand over the million,’ Harry said.

I waited my turn and quietly suggested, ‘Well, actually, I might have an idea. It seems to me that out of the issues we face, the three biggest problems are the unclear ownership of title, the ability to get the bottles out of Tbilisi and then our right to sell them, free of Georgian government, customs or cultural officers’ intervention on the day. Am I right?’

‘That’s my reading of it,’ said Neville.

‘Then how about we offer George a partnership, instead of a straight-out purchase price? My thinking is that, and I agree, we do have to give him some money, as you said, Neville, or we’ll never see the bottles. But what if we offered to pay him half the agreed amount – 500,000 US dollars – as a sign of good faith, as a confirmation of the partnership? In effect, we would then own half of the cellar and he would retain half. In the partnership, we would then be in charge of moving the bottles, preparing them, running the marketing campaign and handling the actual sale. All the stuff we have to do anyway. However, and this is the key, George would retain ownership of the bottles and be contractually and formally in charge of all the things he keeps saying are no problem, such as clearing customs, confirming title, and waving away the Georgian customs officers, if it came to that. For the sale to be completed, he has to sort that stuff out, not us. Our contract and partnership with him would need to state that he is the owner of the wines and we have been engaged to sell the wines for him, for which we get half the profit.’

I took a breath to let everybody digest what I’d said so far, then dived into the second part of my plan.

‘Obviously, this would all need to be worded so that our share is cast-iron yet we are not construed as a part owner. I’m sure a decent solicitor can work that out. Should any problems arise, George’s the owner of the wines, not us, so, hey, if anybody tries to talk about us having ownership or exporting wines that we shouldn’t have, we are just his agents, selling the wine for him.’

Everybody pondered it.

‘We are potentially giving up 50 per cent of a large profit, though, John,’ said Harry.

‘We are. It’s true, Harry,’ I said. ‘But I’m honestly not sure we can manage the potential minefield we might have to cross if we don’t have George chained to the logistics side of the venture. He needs to have very tangible profit-related reasons to come through for us. And, look, maybe I am being too cautious and none of my fears actually happen, but what if they do?’

I took a sip of water and finished by saying, ‘So we’re clear, I can’t see myself being involved in handing over half a million or a million dollars of US currency without some assurances that we can execute the sale and get to the profit.’

Everybody pondered this for a while.

‘It has a lot of merit,’ Neville said. ‘We’re telling George that we’re happy to take the commercial risk but we’re not happy to be under the cloud of the title risk.’

‘What do you think, Kevin?’ I asked.

‘I think it sounds like an interesting plan,’ he said. ‘Almost every bearpit in front of us is actually in Georgia and needs that local handling we can’t do. George only gets half of his million bucks but he is half of the selling exercise and knows he will get a lot more than 500,000 dollars for his share of the sale of the wine.’

‘It’s a major departure from where George started,’ Harry said. ‘He might just want the money.’

‘Well, that can’t happen,’ I said. ‘I think I can convince him that he can end up with a lot more money by going down this road, and I think George might actually enjoy being a partner in an international endeavour like this.’

‘And we can be sure the sale won’t be sabotaged.’ Neville nodded.

‘But look, we all need to digest this, because we’re potentially going from maybe being 100 per cent owners of the cellar to half that. You need time to make that decision.’

We broke for coffee and small talk. But actually, the small talk didn’t last long with such a major proposal in the air. Very quickly, Neville and Harry declared that they didn’t really need much thinking time and the 50 per cent plan sounded like the safest and most sensible way to go.

‘Okay, great,’ I said. ‘If we’re all agreed, I might propose it to George and see what he says. He’s also very keen to have investment in the winery itself, to re-establish it. Neville, I don’t know if that’s something that interests you?’

‘No,’ Neville said. ‘I only want mining rights over there, and a cut of this wine treasure because I was the one who found it. I only want to buy into that ageing old vineyard if it turns out there’s coal or gold underneath it.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘So, we’re agreed that we’ll propose a partnership to George, instead of a straight sale?’

‘Okay,’ said Harry, ‘but let’s cut to the chase. Assuming they are real, all 40,000 or so bottles, what is the cellar worth?’

‘Kevin is still working out that figure,’ I said.

‘You must have a rough idea,’ Harry said to Kevin. ‘In your head, there must be an estimate.’

‘I’m uncomfortable putting a dollar figure out there before I’ve finished my work,’ Kevin said. ‘I have to look at comparable sales globally, how many other bottles of a particular rare vintage are in known collections, or available through major auction or retail channels. I also have to estimate what this provenance of Stalin and co might add to normal market prices. I will be doing a fair bit of guesswork.’

Neville looked slightly exasperated. ‘Kevin, nobody is asking you to sign in blood. We just want to know that if we are going to invest half a million US dollars plus costs, we can expect a decent return.’

Kevin shifted in his seat and frowned. ‘Well, sure. If I really had to pin a number to a board right now at this moment, I’d probably say two and a half to three million US dollars.’

We all considered this. ‘As a total auction sale price?’ Harry said.

‘It might be more if the Georgian-made wines happen to catch the public imagination,’ Kevin said.

‘We really need to talk to a major château and show them some bottles,’ I added. ‘And choose an auction partner to get their view on potential costs and issues.’

‘Okay, then let’s move forward on that basis,’ Neville said. ‘I’ll wait to hear a more formal estimation once you have one. Harry, can you stay behind for a moment?’

Neville led us to the elevators, shaking hands again, smiling and telling us he was so glad we were on board as partners, with so much expertise to share. There was talk of a barbecue at his Hunter Valley farm as a more social way to meet next time. We said that sounded great.

And then Kevin and I were alone, heading silently down to the ground, both staring at the inside of the closed elevator door.

‘Was that your actual figure?’ I asked quietly, almost certain that Kevin was playing with them a little. ‘The estimation.’

‘Of course not,’ Kevin said. ‘I have no idea what the actual figure is yet. I’ll let you know when I get there but yes, it’s going to be a lot more than I just told them.’

I laughed.

As we exited the building and headed to the car, Kevin said, ‘They really went for your 50 per cent ownership idea. I was surprised. Neville is pragmatic so I could see him following your logic, but I didn’t think old Harry would so readily step away from 100 per cent ownership.’

I shrugged. ‘Harry is in a lot of deals and loves making profits but he also doesn’t like to have his funds at too much risk. George’s half share is like an insurance policy on Harry’s invested capital so I think he found comfort in that. Without George fully committed, what we’re about to attempt would be much more fraught.’

The staff at the Double Bay Cellars wanted to know everything when we returned. We had a big dinner one night after closing the shop where Kevin and I took turns telling parts of the adventure, with Frank and Jillian particularly tuned in to the bottles in the cellar and the details of the collection.

I mentioned that on one shelf of the cellar we’d found mysterious bottles mentioning miel, which had confused us.

‘Ah, oui. Chouchen,’ Jillian shrugged.

‘Excuse me?’ I said.

‘Chouchen. It’s Breton: a honey-based liqueur, from Bretagne, or Brittany in English, the most westerly part of France. You know, the Celtic part? The fishermen drink chouchen when they return from the sea. Lots of honey. But it is dangerous stuff, mon ami. It used to be made with honeycomb, bees, venom, everything, and legend has it the venom fermented and made chouchen super potent. The hotels in Brittany still have hooks at the bar for the fishermen to attach their belts to, because too much chouchen affects a man’s balance and they can fall clean backwards off their stools.’

Kevin and I looked at one another.

‘I feel like our valuation might have missed a trick there,’ he said.

‘We’ll have to look them up again if we go back,’ I agreed.

‘And make sure we never drink whatever that is.’ Kevin laughed. ‘It sounds lethal.’

‘Like everything in life, Kevin, it’s all about moderation,’ Jillian said.

Kevin nodded. ‘Okay, that’s good to know. I’m not bad at moderation.’

Late in the first week after my return to Sydney, George emailed again, addressing the email to Kevin and me.

Dear Kevin. Was pleased to get that info that all the wines got home safe for you. Please let me know if you need any more detail about the winery or wine industry of Georgia. John, can you please provide me with draft of any winery development? I want to use it as draft to make one quick one for Winery Number 1, regards George Aramhishvili.

This became the theme of our email exchanges over the next couple of weeks: George kept throwing out requests for winery redevelopment leads while we asked our own questions, such as Kevin wanting to know about the ‘hardened’ wines we’d found in the list when we finally received details of Stalin’s collection, and, more importantly, could George please send the other twelve bottles we’d put aside?

George replied:

I will find out about ‘hardened’. I think in Georgian it is shemargrebuli, which is a sort of port wine. On the bottles, I have Tamaz received permission from God to give next 12 bottles. He loves Chato Ikems especially. He is telling bullshit me about prices 10,000 for 10 bottles of Chato Ikem. Kind regards, George.

Kevin and I both digested that email, and George’s turn of phrase. In the end, it was Kevin who wrote back, saying he was still pulling together information about rebuilding wineries and equipment that might be required, and would have it to George soon. He also really needed info on the hardened wines as there were quite a few of them and it was holding back his overall assessment of the collection. Finally, Kevin wrote that he was about to book a laboratory and technician for analysis of the bottles we had, and therefore really needed the remaining dozen to arrive. ‘I will speak to God on Tamaz’s behalf re the other bottles,’ he wrote to George. ‘In case I do not receive a response, could you please send the remaining twelve bottles as soon as possible. This is an expensive process and I would like to only do it once.’

That was ambitious, Kevin, I thought to myself. I never expected us to see the other dozen bottles. What? Was George, Tamaz or some other Tbilisi winery worker going to carefully package up the dozen antique bottles that they never wanted us to take in the first place, and just send them over? Not likely. But as I followed the email chain, instead of the bottles, we received a surprising answer.

‘Thank you for your information you promise to send me,’ George replied. ‘Hardened wines are ported wines. Hardened in local wine language means strong. With regard to bottles, I faxed Neville results of previous testing of wine collection done years ago. Hope will be any useful.’

I rang Kevin. ‘Did Neville ever mention to you that he had information from George about previous tests on the wines?’

‘Not a word,’ Kevin said. ‘It seems like something he could have shared with us.’

‘Maybe he forgot. Or maybe George only just sent it. We’ll ask him.’

Inevitably, even if we knew we’d never see the other dozen, George would still dangle them in front of us, in emails, to remind us that they were there, along with all the others. Throughout these weeks, we were either emailing or phoning George to discuss the ownership of the cellar and how to get the bottles out of Georgia, while he was constantly discussing the impending ‘takeover’ of the winery, which would include the bottles.

During all this, I ran my fifty-fifty partnership idea past George, and he was agreeable, and quite quickly, actually. After I put the initial proposal to him, he didn’t need much convincing. He immediately understood that this plan could see him receive more than US$1 million and I think he enjoyed the idea of being partners with these Australians he liked and maybe even felt he could trust. He also warmed to the concept of him being a partner in the marketing exercise and building his own relationship with London, if that’s where we based the sale. I still didn’t tell him any more than I had to as we hadn’t finalised the deal and there were many elements that could still go wrong. But we began to draw up legal agreements in Sydney, while discussing potential lawyers that he may have access to, who could handle his legal documents and also confirm who owned the wine.

This question was killing me more than any of the others. We’d been home for well over a month, traded dozens of emails and phone calls, and still had no clear line on who owned the Savane Number One Winery and all of its assets, including the cellars. After one long phone call with George, running over the fine detail of our entire proposal, and repeatedly trying to pitch this one vital question, I was still left with one note at the bottom of my page, reading: ‘Do you, George, have the legal position to agree to this?’

He certainly talked as though he was the man in charge, but then he always had, from before we went to Tbilisi, without feeling a need to mention the entire room full of other executives that we would discover upon arrival. When I pushed him again on the security and export procedure of moving the wine, he wrote back: ‘The takeover plan includes that after the takeover, we appoint our supervisory board, our directors’ board. Neville, Kevin and John definite members of both boards. My boys replace all security and present staff within weeks. Swiss bank style locks immediately.’

This was an eye-opening email for me. ‘What it’s saying,’ I said to Kevin, ‘is that George doesn’t have control over the company at this stage, but if we can agree a deal to sell the collection and re-establish the Savane Number One as a going concern, he’d put himself in a position where he could take over the whole thing.’

‘I think we stay focused on our deal, which is to buy a half share of the wine,’ Kevin said. ‘I’d love to get Neville’s take on this.’

‘Yeah. I’ve called him twice but he hasn’t replied,’ I said. ‘There was another line in a George email that mentioned Neville. It said: “We should start takeover next week at the latest. Initially we need 140,000 dollars to complete all legal paperwork and make complete takeover. Balance of half payment after that and final balance after shipment of wines and all export procedures completed upon Neville’s instructions.”’

‘On Neville’s instructions,’ Kevin said.

‘I guess they talk about the mining. Maybe Neville just mentioned he would help with that export part if we needed it,’ I said.

The legal emails and discussions continued for another week or so. I still hadn’t heard from Neville or Harry, so I just ploughed on trying to agree to a deal with George, using KPMG’s Sydney office to draft the paperwork. I did write a one-page summary to George, explaining that my plan would see the initial US$500,000 placed in a solicitor’s trust account to be released when the wines crossed the Georgian border or left Georgian waters. It meant George wouldn’t receive a cent unless the wines actually left Georgia, and he must have accepted it, because our lawyers continued to draft up the agreement.

My fax machine continued to run hot. One morning, I arrived to discover a fax from the Business Legal Bureau, Attorney of Law, Georgia.

The letter gave an official legal opinion from Tbilisi about what we were dealing with. It explained that the Georgian No. 1 winery (the Savane, as we called it) had been privatised in 1993 and listed the activities of the company. As of 1996, the letter said shareholders in the winery included Mr Tamaz (17 per cent) and Mr Revaz (11 per cent). But then further changes in 1998 had altered the shareholding again. Of course, that was only the year before our visit so it made sense that soon after that latest change of ownership, somebody had decided a way to raise much-needed capital could be to sell those old wines in the cellar. There was no mention anywhere of George’s name or any business we understood to be George’s. Where did George get his shares, or access to the company, to be making such major decisions?

I sat and thought about it. There was no doubt, when we were there, that George carried considerable weight at the Savane Number One and with the executives. He was certainly a major player in this, even if he hadn’t apparently made his ownership move yet. Or was George a part of, or maybe a puppet for, the new owners?

One bright spot within the letter was that it outlined the stock and assets of the winery and stated clearly that: ‘The enterprise has old traditions and unique collections samples of wine among them from collection of Stalin and Russian Tsar King Alexander III and Nikolai II.’

That was a nice piece of paper with a legal letterhead to take to an auction house as proof of our claim. In fact, once we received the other necessary documentation from George and his cohorts, we would be in a strong position to discuss a very attractive auction of this amazing collection. No matter how much ownership and legal tape I waded through, I kept one eye on those bottles.

While all of this was going on, I was trying to manage my usual workload. The Double Bay Cellars was busy. It was a great business and we had very good staff. With real estate prices soaring in that part of Sydney, along with pre-Olympic excitement and spring in the air, summer was around the corner and we struggled to keep up at times.

I was sitting at my desk doing paperwork, an hour or so after closing one night, when Kevin wandered in clutching a quiver of A4 paper and mentioned that he had some ‘creative accounting’ that I might be interested in.

I looked up and said, ‘Aha! The Georgian cellar valuation?’

He nodded. ‘You’re the only person in the world that I know who would actually say “Aha!” but that was an entertaining one,’ he said.

‘Well, this calls for a drink, whatever the figure,’ I said. ‘Do I choose a good wine or a very good wine?’

‘Make it rather good, I think,’ he said.

I fetched a nice half bottle of a most respectable Bordeaux, a Château Pichon Baron, and poured us both a glass.

Kevin had taken his usual chair opposite me, inspecting his glass and sipping the Bordeaux. He was clearly in no hurry to get to the point.

‘Ah, John,’ he mused. ‘How appropriate. A stablemate of our beloved Suduiraut. It’s a great château, Pichon Baron, in the absolute dress circle position in Pauillac, with exceptional terroir, and one that I think it going to improve even more over the coming years.’

I had decided by now that he clearly didn’t have bad news for me, and in fact was potentially even looking slightly smug.

‘Okay, suspense king, stop playing,’ I said. ‘Let’s hear it.’

He grinned and leaned forward.

‘The key figure you’re probably waiting to hear is eight,’ he said in that deadpan Canadian way of his.

‘Eight?’ I said.

‘Maybe seven,’ he admitted.

‘Can you expand on that, just a little?’ I asked.

He said he could, if I’d allow him quite a few asterisks and sidenotes. Could we get all 40,000 bottles out? How many racks would fall, destroying how many bottles, before or during the process? ‘I concede this is unlikely,’ he said, ‘because the racks we saw actually seemed fairly secure, but I think we should factor in as a consideration that some might collapse as we unload the bottles.’

‘Yes, fair enough,’ I said.

Kevin had other concerns. ‘Can we find a packaging company trustworthy and careful enough to nurse such fragile wines?’ he asked. ‘As well as the obvious age of the bottles, there are other dangers. During wars over the last century or so, for example, the best glass was in some cases diverted to the war effort, to make telescopic sights and other important optic equipment. Wine companies had to do their best to find other potential bottle materials and I even read that in some cases, second-hand bottles were used. How many of those are among the cellar’s riches, just waiting to collapse when picked up?’

‘Yes, fair enough, Kevin, I can see it’s worth noting but every bottle we picked up seemed to be okay and certainly showed no sign of excessive fragility or possible deterioration, as long as they were to be carefully packed,’ I said. ‘But I like your thinking and yes, we need to be aware of all this.’

‘Well, the good news,’ Kevin said, ‘is that even if you put all of those questions aside and assume that we would be able to lift the vast majority of the collection intact, my rough appraisal is that the cellar should fetch between seven and eight million US dollars under the hammer. It will probably piss Neville and Harry off, but I can’t really get any more exact than that at this stage.’

I laughed and shrugged.

‘Kevin, that’s brilliant. We don’t need it to be any more detailed at this stage. What you’re telling me is that we would easily cover the overall cost of the purchase from George and the expenses of removal and carrying out the auction. We know those costs are going to be considerable, but this figure means there should still be a very handy profit even after all that, hey?’

‘If we were to have any trouble getting George, Neville or Harry over the line on the fifty-fifty idea before, I think one look at these figures should convince them, in terms of the overall potential profit,’ Kevin said. ‘There’s enough money to go around.’

He was right but the truth was that I wasn’t necessarily even in this adventure just for the money anymore, much as I was not against the idea of doing well for our efforts. I was having a lot of fun, enjoying the closest thing to the Raiders of the Lost Ark that a wine buyer could ever hope to experience in his or her professional life. Besides delivering to George more than his initial US$1 million asking price, it would be rewarding if we could also help alert the world to the wonders of Georgia, its wine history and its potential as a tourism and wine destination. Kevin and I wanted to deliver the cellar, and deliver it well, using all of our expertise and skill. In other words, there was a lot of motivation to be successful, and here was Kevin’s estimation to give us the financial certainty to charge on.

Buoyed by Kevin’s news, I emailed Neville and Harry to tell them Kevin’s estimate and then booked an appointment with the lawyers helping us at KPMG’s Sydney office. We refined the official deal, which I was keen to at least send to George so that we could judge his commitment at this stage of the game. There’s nothing like asking somebody to sign an agreement to make all the parties involved consolidate their thinking or flush out the elements they don’t agree with. Once we had an agreement signed and we were confident that George and his crowd were definitely planning to go through with the deal, I would finally have something to take to Sotheby’s, Christie’s or another major auction house.

The agreement stated that we would pay a US$100,000 deposit on the wines upon signing and upon a valid legal opinion that George was entitled to agree to the deal as the owner of the wines.

We had a lot of provisions about who was in charge of various aspects of what was to come. The goods had to be packed under expert supervision, and the seller of the half share of the cellar (George) was responsible for having the wines delivered safely to the port or airport nominated by the buyer (us). As buyer, we were responsible for the freight and insurance of the goods being exported. However, it made it clear that George or the Savane Number One sellers were ‘responsible for any government authority prior to export.’

‘Delivery is executed when the wine leaves Georgia on exportation to the country we nominate,’ it read. I was reasonably sure that the destination would be the United Kingdom. In fact, I was leaning towards Sotheby’s as the auction house, given they had once staged a major sale of the Massandra Collection, from Russia’s official winery. That auction had not included any antique French wines and that was one of the aspects we were pinning our valuation hopes on. My idea was that we would show them our sample bottles, by then authenticated, and Sotheby’s would send an expert valuer to Tbilisi to authenticate the remaining bottles and to confirm the ‘story’ of the auction. Sotheby’s would certify the wine and do the packaging, not unlike what they did for the Massandra Collection. Given they had already pulled off that monster, we would also remain open to their advice, and a better plan, if they had one. This part was their world more than ours.

The remaining US$400,000 would be put into the trust account, as explained to George. There would be provisions for ‘an adjustment to the investment amount’, depending on the condition of the bottles upon arrival in England. If there was major damage or bottles had gone missing along the way, those costs would be taken from the overall cost of the cellar and the US$400,000 balance would be adjusted accordingly.

Clause 9 specifically mentioned that the seller would need to indemnify and protect the buyer in the case of any breach of a warranty in the agreement. In simple language, if anybody came after us about the wine after shipping, claiming it belonged to the Georgian people or wasn’t George’s to sell, we would be covered.

‘Dear Kevin,’ George wrote on Tuesday 10 August. ‘How are things from your end? Can we speed up the story?’

‘Dear John,’ George wrote to me, maybe another week later. ‘When do you think takeover can take place? This week?’

I could feel the anxiety from George’s end of things, as this deal actually began to sharpen. Or maybe it was excitement, because the sale might happen? We were talking about a lot of money in Georgian lari. We had George’s full attention.

Until it seemed we didn’t. After that flurry of hurry-up emails, everything went silent from the Tbilisi end for three full weeks. Eventually, Kevin wrote, asking George if everything was okay.

The next day, we received a reply.

‘Everything is going to schedule under Neville’s personal supervision,’ George wrote. ‘I just need one more week to complete papers from my end and after that, you can start your part of the work. We have legal office now. I can give you the email address if you are interested in the services. Kind regards, George.’

I put in a call to Neville but he didn’t call back. I emailed, asking Neville to please give me a call. Was he currently in Tbilisi? What did George mean by Neville’s personal supervision? Neville hadn’t mentioned to us that he was guiding George to make sure the deal went through, but it was actually a smart idea, if he was, given their mining relationship. It could make the agreement sail through more easily.

A week later, George wrote again.

All takeover documents are completed and are currently sended to Sydney Neville for approval. Within 5 working days after it you can start up your activity dealing with new director and owner of Winery No. 1, Mr Neville Rhodes.

I was literally reading those words when my phone started ringing. I glanced at the email header and saw Kevin had been cc’ed in.

I picked up the phone and said, ‘Hi, Kevin.’

‘You’re the business guy,’ Kevin said down the line. ‘Explain to me what is going on that our old mate Nev just became the director and owner of Savane Number One.’

I pursed my lips, thinking.

‘All I can think,’ I finally said, ‘is that Neville and George have decided that that is the best way to make sure we can get the wine out, guaranteed. All along we’ve wondered who owns the Savane Number One and whether George had the right to agree to selling the collection. If it’s Neville now in that chair, we’re free to make it happen, aren’t we?’

‘I guess so,’ said Kevin. ‘It doesn’t strike you as weird that Neville didn’t think to explain that plan to us, though?’

‘Definitely weird,’ I agreed. ‘Neville is super friendly but he only seems to communicate when he wants to. I’m going to chase him down now, to double-check that this is all above board, from our point of view.’

I sat at my desk, took a deep breath and stared into space, crafting letters to Neville in my head. We had a legal four-partner agreement in place, so I only needed to know how this development was designed to help our wine sale. In the end, I decided to approach from a less fraught angle. I wrote to Neville, explaining that I was heading to London the following week and would need some documentation from him, as official owner of the Savane Number One, stating that I had the right to discuss the cellar and the proposed sale with the relevant people while I was there.

‘Neville, I’m sure you understand that I can’t be discussing the cellar from simply a conceptual point of view. I would have to have documented access and irrevocable ability to deliver the cellar, to be able to really wind these people up and maximise our position,’ I wrote.

I printed the letter and faxed it to Neville’s personal fax number.

Two days of silence later, I emailed George, asking for a progress update.

‘I send Neville paperwork to complete actual takeover,’ George wrote back. ‘I also try to contact him on daily basis without major success. Maybe you can do it more efficiently from that end. Steven Thrush is in Tbilisi these days, departing tomorrow to Sydney, so I will send some message to Neville via him too.’

I squinted at my screen, thinking: Who is Steven Thrush?

I was now two days away from flying to London, without the approval to raise the concept of the sale with Sotheby’s. I did some research while I waited and discovered this Steven Thrush chap was involved in Alaniya Gold, so presumably he was a colleague of Neville’s in the mining business.

I was not enjoying this vacuum we’d found ourselves in. I repeatedly rang Harry, who just shrugged and said he hadn’t spoken to Neville and had no idea where things were at. I tried Paula, Neville’s lawyer, but she didn’t call me back. I had a mostly drafted international agreement to buy and sell museum wine worth millions of dollars and now my own partners had gone mute on me. I didn’t understand it and I was starting to get a little nervous about how things were sitting.

Some people and deals get complicated, but my philosophy has always been that one has to stay focused on the main issue and not let the trash and shrapnel complicate things further. Very simply, George wanted US dollars for the wine and we were prepared to pay them, so all of this other talk and winery ownership and other complications were only noise, as long as they didn’t actually torpedo the deal. Smart people condense a scenario down to the end goal and just punch on through, so I decided to take that road.

And anyway, I’m not one to give up easily, so I kept calling Neville. The day before I flew out to London, I almost fell off my chair when he actually answered.

‘John,’ he said, with nothing but happiness to hear from me, sunshine and warmth in his voice down the phone. ‘How are you? Sorry I’ve been a bit hard to catch. Got a lot going on.’

‘So I hear,’ I said, ‘which is why I rang. Neville, what is going on? I have a few questions, off the back of my correspondence with George. Am I correct in believing you now have control of the board of the Savane Number One Winery?’

‘That’s right,’ Neville said. ‘I am the director and owner of that business now.’

‘The owner?’ I asked.

‘That’s correct,’ he said.

‘Okay, so, Neville, if we turn up with a truck to move some stock out of that cellar, do you own and control it, or can somebody stop us?’

‘No, I don’t control that yet,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because George has to get the legals drawn up in Georgia, to move any stock.’

‘So George can do that on our behalf and your behalf?’

‘Sure,’ he said.

‘Do I need to go to Tbilisi to deal with lawyers there, as George suggested, and have that documentation done?’ I asked.

‘That would be a way of doing it,’ Neville said. ‘However, I won’t come. We don’t need a football team there. Anyway, we’re getting closer, hey, John? I really need to go. Have a great trip to London.’

After we’d hung up, I realised he had still not given me approval to officially approach Sotheby’s.

I had an entire trip to London and France, buying wine for the shop, to ponder where things were at. With Neville now owning the winery, that took away the huge headache of who we were actually dealing with. No more Tamaz or Revaz, presumably, to stand in our way. But did this mean we were now paying Neville US$500,000 for a half share of the wine that he was supposedly trying to buy?

What also gnawed at me was that even Neville, from this new position of strength as the owner, hadn’t been able to confirm that we could take the wine out of Tbilisi.

When I returned to Australia, I contacted Alan Bennett, a partner at KPMG’s legal department, and explained where we were at. I was sick of the same old unknowns and decided to invest some money in legal work to know once and for all. Alan mentioned that KPMG had an office in Azerbaijan, the country south of Georgia, and we asked that office for help. Alan and I drew up terms of reference, relating to my same old chestnuts: who owned the wine, any and all government and licensing and approvals required for export, and the likelihood of any government claim on the wine as artefacts during or after export. Also, as a matter of interest, was anybody selling the wine also allowed to be part of the group buying the wine, as Neville now seemed to be.

Kevin, upon hearing that I was now waiting for this legal opinion, just snorted and said, ‘I’m tipping that the lawyers say we have a snowflake’s chance in hell of the Georgian government letting us sell them, but George and Neville say everything is A-OK, so hand over the money.’

I groaned. This was beginning to do my head in, so I did the only logical thing and left town, heading north to go visit a friend, Anne, in Noosa for a couple of nights of excellent wine, very good food and great company. Walking through the national park, watching loggerhead turtles and dolphins in the ocean, was a good way to calm my whirring brain about the Georgian situation. What will be will be, I thought. You can’t push it and shouldn’t push it. This was about the adventure, not just the money. It’s in the hands of experts now, so let them deal the cards and see how they fall.

That night, Anne organised a dinner with some local friends and announced we’d be playing a game called Jolene.

‘You know the Dolly Parton song?’ Anne asked. ‘Well, one person is Jolene and everybody else has to role-play the part of a woman who is worried that Jolene is going to take their man. It’s their job to argue succinctly and passionately why Jolene shouldn’t take their man. Once everybody has stated their case, the person playing Jolene decides which man she will take, just because she can.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Is this a Noosa thing?’

‘No, it’s an Anne thing,’ Anne said. ‘And just for asking that question, Mr John Baker, my dear friend, you will be playing the role of Jolene.’

‘Your happiness depends on me,’ I said, pouring myself another wine.

This was going to be fun.