Wine Fraud, or The Importance of Attention to Detail

Greetings all!

I used to collect fridge magnets from different countries. Well, luxury assets my magnets were certainly not – but there was no drama about them either! 

The world of luxury assets includes expensive cars, jewelry, art – and fine wines. Wine connoisseurs are willing to spend quite a bit of money on a rare bottle. For example, Screaming Eagle Cabernet 1992 from Napa Valley fetched a nice sum of $500,000. 

 Image and the price point from 

https://financesonline.com/top-10-most-expensive-red-wines-in-the-world-cabernet-sauvignon-tops-the-list/

But wine aficionados, beware - the world of wine can be fraught with drama, crime, and fraud. One example is the story of Rudy Kurniawan, a young Indonesian who lived in Los Angeles – he is still California but in prison for what might have been the biggest known wine fraud.

Considered by many a very gifted taster, he became a force to be reckoned with at wine auctions where he bought and sold millions of dollars’ worth of wine, particularly bottles of Burgundy. Except it appears he filled the more expensive bottles with blends he artfully made from lesser wines.

According to a www.vanityfair.com article (see full link in Resources below), “Old wines are especially tempting for counterfeiters: they generally command the highest prices and fewer people have tasted the genuine articles. Also, because uniformity in packaging is only a fairly recent innovation, counterfeiting old wines doesn’t require as much exactitude." 

One of the factors that contributed to his downfall might have been the complexity of French Burgundies and how they were sold before 1970s: it seems that until the 1970s, merchant houses, or négociants, bought from Burgundy producers and then bottled and sold the wines under their own labels.

That is why it was probably easy to confuse Domaine Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis (the actual wine producer) and a Christine Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis (the merchant house, highlight mine), except the names were just a coincidence and the families were not related.

But another factor was not doing enough research. It appears he tried to sell the wine made by Domaine Ponsot, except the vintage he tried to unload was from the years before that particular vintage even existed. 

So here is the lesson: Trying to sell a rare 1947 bottle of Burgundy when said Burgundy vintage was not produced until much much later? Do your research and pay attention to details!

RESOURCES: 

• https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/wine-fraud-rudy-kurniawan-vintage-burgundies 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Kurniawan 
• https://financesonline.com/top-10-most-expensive-red-wines-in-the-world-cabernet-sauvignon-tops-the-list/

  What did you think? Drop me a line!