I think I saw this in an episode of White Collar on Netflix. I love little details like this!

Back when I was a photographer at Christie’s, I went to Bill Koch’s wine cellar to photograph several of his wines that he was putting up for auction. While there, I got to see his Jefferson wine bottles, a few years before he found out they were most likely fake.

The article mentions that Malcolm Forbes bought one of the Jefferson wines for a record price of $157,000 but it doesn’t tell you what happened next to that bottle: Forbes proudly put it on display in the Forbes Gallery, with some lights shining on it. The heat from the lights dried up the cork:

Forbes’ son, Christopher, was philosophical about the unexpected turn of events. “Whether you could drink it is purely speculative, anyway,” he said. “We bought it to enhance our collection, certainly not to drink it, or even open it.” But Roger Yassen, president of Chaine Des Rotisseurs, a gastronomic society, was horrified at the conditions under which such a priceless vintage is being stored. “Mr. Forbes,” he said, “should be spanked.”

I love that story.