Forget about Two-Buck Chuck. The latest wine bargain is Twelve-Buck Tom -- as in Petters.
The Wayzata estate of jailed businessman Tom Petters shed 590 bottles of wine on Tuesday as U.S. District Court Judge Ann Montgomery approved the sale of the contents of Petters' wine cellar in his Lake Minnetonka home.
The sale was negotiated at the behest of court-appointed receiver Doug Kelley, who has been searching for assets to sell for nearly a year.
A wine expert had appraised Petters' varied wine collection at an average of $10 a bottle. But the buyer, Wayzata resident William Larson, might have placed some sentimental value on the collection, as he outbid Jack Hanna of Minnetonka and bought the 590-bottle lot for $7,080 -- a two-buck-a-bottle premium over the appraised value.
Larson can rest assured that the wine has been aging undisturbed for the last 12 months while Petters has sat in jail awaiting trial for his role in an alleged $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme. Indeed, the wine appraiser said some of the bottles may have gone past their prime while the Petters house sat empty.
DAVID PHELPS
