In 2009, a man seeking more than $1 million in ransom money attempted to poison the vineyards of one of the world's most prestigious wineries, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, in Burgundy, France. Bottles from this winery have sold for as much as $124,000.
Denver author Maximillian Potter, a former executive editor for 5280 magazine who is now on the communications staff of Gov. John Hickenlooper, wrote a story about the caper for Vanity Fair titled, "The Assassin in the Vineyard."
He has turned the project into the new book, "Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine." You can read an excerpt from the first chapter here.
“I say that a crime is what took me there in the first place, but the poetry and the people and the place are what kept me coming back,” Potter told CPR's Ryan Warner at The Tattered Cover Book Store. Click the audio player above to hear their conversation.
