'Jefferson' wine's bidder taste

A billionaire wine lover wants to put a cork in Christie's sales of vintage vino.

William Koch filed suit yesterday against the Midtown auction house, claiming it has conspired for decades with an alleged German fraudster to market cases of counterfeit reds -- including three bottles purportedly owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Koch, owner of the Florida-based energy company Oxbow Corp., says he blew more than $300,000 on bogus booze based on the hype surrounding a Christie's auction of the supposedly centuries-old bottles engraved "Th.J."

One of those bottles sold for a record $156,000 to publishing heir Christopher Forbes in 1985.

Mark Randall/Sun Sentinel SEEING RED: Billionaire wine collector William Koch holds a bottle with "Thomas Jefferson's" initials -- like the one below -- that he now says is fake. His suit accuses Christie's of hyping the vintages as the real thing.

Koch's Manhattan federal court suit seeks unspecified damages, along with an injunction barring Christie's from selling any pre-1962 wine "without first obtaining the opinion of an independent qualified expert" saying it's legit.

The filing is the latest in a string of pending legal actions launched by Koch since he began probing the provenance of his own four bottles of "Th.J" wine -- which he bought in 1988 from The Chicago Wine Company -- in connection with a 2005 plan to exhibit them at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.

The suit says Koch's suspicions were confirmed with the help of 10 "confidential" witnesses, including former Christie's employees and German glass workers who said they engraved bottles for the source of the purported Jefferson wines, Hardy Rodenstock.

Koch, whose yacht won the 1992 America's Cup race, claims Christie's knew that Rodenstock's bottles couldn't be tied to the Founding Father, but auctioned them off to get a 25 percent cut.

Christie's spokesman Toby Usnik said: "While we have great respect for Mr. Koch, we believe the allegations in this complaint are incorrect. We look forward to the opportunity to prove our position in court."