This episode is a special addition to our regular lineup. Wine fraud and counterfeiting may sound like seductive plot lines on Law & Order or a Lifetime movie, but they’re very real problems that affect real people.
This week we’re taking a look at one of the biggest wine fraud cases in modern history. In 2013, Rudy Kurniawan was sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling millions of dollars’ worth of fake rare vintages. After he was released, he was deported from the U.S. But where is Rudy now? (For the full back story, check out Wine Enthusiast’s true crime podcast, Vinfamous.)
In this episode, Writer-at-Large Christina Pickard sits down with Maureen Downey to discuss Kurniawan’s latest whereabouts. Downey is a former auction house employee and founder of Chai Consulting, which specializes in wine authentication and valuation. She has inspected hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of wine during her career advising the world’s top collectors, auction houses and wine merchants.
Listen as Downey describes how Kurniawan nearly pulled off the scam; the moneyed fine wine scene in Singapore, where Kurniawan currently resides; and how Kurniawan’s crimes have impacted the wine industry.
Episode Transcript
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.
SPEAKERS
Maureen Downey, Jacy Topps, Christina Pickard
Jacy Topps 00:09
Hello, and welcome to the Wine Enthusiast podcast. You’re serving of drinks culture, and the people who drive it. I’m Jacy Topps. This episode is a special addition to our regular lineup. Wine fraud may sound like a seductive plot on lawn order, or a Sunday Lifetime movie, but it’s very real. And this week, we’re taking a look into the crime. Writer at large Christina Picard sat down with Maureen Downey to discuss the latest on one of the largest wine fraud cases in modern history. Maureen is a former auction house employee and founder of chai consulting, a company specializing in wine authentication and valuation. Maureen has inspected hundreds of millions of dollars worth of wine in the course of advising the world’s top collectors, auction houses and wine merchants. So listen on as Maureen explains how Rudy Kurniawan pulled off, one of the most expensive wine scams in our time; explains the fine wine scene in Singapore where Rudy currently resides; and what his fraudulent actions have done to the wine industry as a whole.
Jacy Topps 01:15
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Christina Pickard 02:17
Hi, my name is Christina Pickard, one of Wine Enthusiast writers at large. Today we’re bringing you some very recent updates on the whereabouts and actions of Rudy Kurniawan, who was convicted in 2013 of one of the largest most elaborate wine frauds in history. Rudy was released from prison in 2021 and immediately deported from the US to Indonesia. Today, I’ll be talking to Maureen Downey, a former auction house employee and the founder of the wine collector services firm che consulting the authentication resource website winefraud.com and to renew anti fraud and track and trace web three ventures che vault Maureen is one of the world’s few wine authentications experts, and was the earliest whistleblower of Rudy scam back in 2002. She has followed his case closely for over two decades and is just back from Singapore where Rudy now resides part time and where he is apparently back in the wine fraud game. Maureen, welcome.
Maureen Downey 03:17
Hi, thanks for having me. A pleasure.
Christina Pickard 03:19
So before we launch into where Rudy is now, to give listeners a reminder of the Rudy Kurniawan case, this is a man who is Indonesian born and raised was limit living illegally in the United States from 2003. And as it was eventually discovered, is from a family of convicted criminals and fraudsters back home in Indonesia. In the United States. Kurniawan was convicted in 2013 of counterfeiting wines that the FBI estimated he sold for about $30 million, as well as bank fraud for a $7 million loan that he obtained with false information. It’s estimated that he actually made more like $550 million worth of fake wine. And it’s speculated that an approximate 10,000 bottles are still in circulation or in the private sellers of collectors. Kurniawan, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was released in June of 2021, after serving eight and a half years, and was then deported straight afterwards from the US. Do I have all that right so far?
Maureen Downey 04:19
Yeah, pretty much. He’s actually a Chinese national, but he grew up in Indonesia. Gotcha. So his family is is Chinese, and that that was somehow important in the in the case, it was part of his defense because it was, you know, what was him he didn’t fit in? He was the poor Chinese get in Indonesia. So whatever. Gotcha. It’s also his parents gave him the name Rudy Kurniawan. Because that’s an Indonesian name. It’s actually a famous Indonesian badminton player. Oh, really? Theory. Yeah, his real name is Jinhwan long.
Christina Pickard 04:54
So for listeners who want to hear more about how Maureen how you got to know Rudy, and your whole journey with him I would recommend listening to our sister podcast Vinfamous where you do go more into detail on that about your history with him and his story leading up till now for this episode I want to talk about where Rudy is now. And also, before I forget, I also want to recommend folks go to your wine fraud.com site because you have in depth reporting on his case, both the trials where he is now so I also recommend your wine fraud.com site. Yeah, but let’s fast forward to the present day, which at the time of recording, it’s November 1 2023. The internet was awash with speculations just before Kurniawan prison release and 2021 over where he would end up being deported to what he had to Europe with Hong Kong, Singapore. It turns out it was the latter. So Kurniawan is now living at least part time in Singapore. Can you describe for us firstly, what the wine scene is like in Singapore, particularly within the collecting and fine wine world?
Maureen Downey 06:03
Yet, you know, it’s actually a really interesting time for Singapore. So prior to 2008, when Hong Kong completely dropped their tariff on wine, Singapore was like the fine wine hub of Asia, that’s where all the fine line was, was imported to. It’s a good kind of cross section area, it’s easy to reach for most places. It’s beautiful. So it used to be the fine wine hub. And then when Hong Kong brought their tariffs down, Hong Kong quickly took over as the fine wine hub. But as China has taken back over Hong Kong, and especially with you know, the draconian lockdowns during COVID, and you know, the Chinese murdering all the pets and shit like that, I mean, that happened in Hong Kong, as well. So most of the expats have left there have been about 130,000 British people that have left and all the French people that worked in wine that I knew that live there left. So what is what is interesting for Singapore about that is that Singapore is once again kind of become the the hotspot playground. Now that doesn’t mean Hong Kong is dead. The tariff is still you know, nothing in Hong Kong. So it’s still a big hub. But Singapore has regained a little bit of its position as the place to go and the fine wine scene, there’s hot, it’s, it’s really fun.
Christina Pickard 07:24
That’s an interesting update. Thank you. I didn’t realize a lot of that. So speaking of and you’re able to speak with experience because you have literally just returned from a trip to Singapore. Can you tell us what you uncovered there in terms of Rudy Kurniawan.
Maureen Downey 07:40
So what’s funny, is that it even unsolicited, like totally unsolicited, ever since Rudy got out, everybody has been sending me like pictures like, oh, we spotted him here. We spotted him there. So I’ve had a little bit of a of knowledge about where you know about his movements and stuff. And I just think that’s funny, because I never asked for it, you know. But now that people are sending it to me, I think it’s super interesting. So now I want people to keep sending me stuff. But so Rudy is living at least part time. So he was deported to Indonesia. He’s got family in Indonesia. But he probably also has most certainly has at least a family domicile in Singapore. So it looks like he’s spending most of his time in Singapore. But he is going back and forth to Hong Kong quite a bit. And it’s funny, because when I was there, so you’re right, it’s Today Wednesday. I got back on Monday night, at 10 o’clock. So I’m literally just back. I’m still jet lagged. But apparently over the weekend, Rudy was spotted, and somebody took a picture of him in immigration at Hong in Hong Kong. And I think this is amazing. So we’ve got pictures of him tasting wine and drinking wine. And apparently the deal is that his services are for sale, and everybody knows it. And he’ll make he’ll make wine and people are paying him to attend lunches and dinners. But he was going to Hong Kong. This pisses me off because YPO which is a legitimate organization, was paying him to go to Hong Kong to speak to their organization.
Christina Pickard 09:23
Wow, what could you clarify what YPO actually is what kind of organization?
Maureen Downey 09:28
Young Presidents Organization, it’s a really respected, you know, organization. We are the global leadership community of extraordinary chief executives, more than 30,000 members from 442 countries. That’s Young Presidents Organization. That is the tagline if I look it up on the website, and then here it says YPO or ypo.org YPO is an American based worldwide leadership community of chief exec Gibbs with more than 34,000 global members in more than 142 countries.
Christina Pickard 10:06
So they’re paying him to present at an event of theirs. Could you speculate on what they could what he could be speaking about?
Maureen Downey 10:17
Counterfeit wine? I don’t know. I mean, how to rip off their friends? I don’t know. I just think that’s, I mean, I get it if a group of collectors are like yeah, let’s get that Rudy guy. And so, what a lot of times what they’re doing is at least the the data that I’ve been given. And then then all the stories that I’ve been told is, is there’s one group where the organizer will have his friends pull out like really big bottles like 9090, Ramona Conti, like $30,000 bottle, you know, 9090, LePen, 9090, Petrus, like crazy models that most people in the world will never get to drink. And the organizer will tell Rudy, what the people who are coming to the dinner are bringing. And then Rudy will make his own version of those bottles. And they go and, and they have an event, and they taste the wine side by side blind. And everybody talks about, you know, which one they like better, and of the tasting notes that I’ve read, and the tasting notes that we have on wine for.com, we obtained up somebody sent me a WeChat document with tasting notes and photographs from one of these events. And of course, it’s the same thing that people used to say, they like Rudy’s wine better because it tastes fresher. And that’s because he’s using the younger one. So, why he’s it and why why an organization like YPO would pay, you know, a convicted felon, who still owes, he made a lot more than $30 million he owes over, you know, he owes $30 million to his his victims and restitution. And this organization is paying him to go and speak.
Christina Pickard 12:13
And this goes back, I think, to this perception where some people see him as this Robin Hood figure where others as the convicted criminal that he is, what are
Maureen Downey 12:26
Wait, wait, there is nothing Robinhood about Rudy, you know, you cannot say and well, maybe there is because Robin Hood, if you look at the truth of the Robin Hood story, he wasn’t stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Robin Hood was taking back the people’s taxes that the king had stolen from them. Rudy did nothing positive at all, ever, except for John capon, and Accra, Merrill Condit and a bunch of those guys that made a boatload of money off of Rudy’s fraud, Rudy damaged the wine industry, he damaged producers, he damaged the supply chain. You know, he forever damaged the wine consumers trust in the wine industry, and he caused prices to rise significantly. So, there is no positive about what Rudy did. The reason that people want to hang out with him is not because he’s a Robin Hood figure. It’s because he’s a gangster. And people like to hang out with gangsters.
Christina Pickard 13:34
And I mean, now that you know that people are paying to hang out with this gangster, for Kurniawan to create these fake wines for him as someone like yourself who’s devoted her life to catching wine fraudsters. How do you feel about this?
Maureen Downey 13:50
You know, I’m pissed off. I gotta be honest. It’s really brazen. Like, I always wondered if he was gonna get back into it. What I find really interesting, and this is one of the things that I wrote on one front.com Is that people over the last, you know, in the years that he was, so he was in jail for about a year and a half before he was he was sentenced. So in the time that he was in jail, people were always asking me, What do you think he’s going to do? Is he going to get back into it? And I always thought, well, you know, I’m not sure I mean, his family is involved in enough other stuff that he could stay out of it. But the one thing that always gave me pause was that in his letter to the judge, which was supposed to be a contrition letter, which is also posted on one four.com. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t say I’m really sorry, I ripped people off. What he said was, this was the only thing I was ever good at. And I find that to be a fascinating statement. There was no contrition in that letter. You know, it was be kind to me because I have to take care of my mother who’s, you know, old, and this is the only thing I was ever good at. That’s Not very sorry. Right? So it makes sense to me that he got back into it. It makes sense to me that he’s, you know, he’s got this like, he’s kind of, he’s infamous. And people want to do that. And he’s good at it. He’s good at making these blends. So what pisses me off is that there are so many people in the world who have been his victims, because whether or not you purchased Rudy Kurniawan is wine at auction or direct or through a retail offering. If you are part of the wine, fine wine loving community, you are a victim of his fraud. So it just makes no sense to me that he’s being celebrated the way that he is.
Christina Pickard 15:50
And let’s be clear what Kurniawan. Is doing Kurniawan is doing now at these parties is legal. I mean, anyone could blend together a cheap wine and say, Yeah, let’s blend this against the real deal. See, which is which? Which is fine if they’re just for party games. But what if these fake wines find their way into the market? What are your speculations on that?
Maureen Downey 16:10
Right, he’s also taking the empty zone. He takes the real bottles, and you know, MTM, which is what he used to do. And the real question is, and there is, so there’s some of the things that I’ve heard is that he has actually been approached by wineries to be a consultant and those wineries would have to be in China. Because if they’re in the US than any money that he makes, she needs to pay restitution. Like remember he hasn’t paid his victims back a penny so to my knowledge, or if he has it’s been negligible you know, so yeah, I mean, anybody can make a counterfeit wine and say, haha fun party trick. The problem is if if he actually starts to get hired to make a counterfeit production, and what we’ve seen in the wake of the the Kurniawan, and the there was a famous counterfeit or before Rudy and infamous counterfeit or before Rudy named Hardy Rodin stock and they both made old and rare bottles, which is difficult because you have to age the wine and everything in the wake of of that fraud. What happened globally organized crime looked at this and said, Well, you know, damn, only one person has ever really been convicted of this. There’s one guy Alexandra YouGov, who got caught in in making counterfeit Domaine de La Romana Conte. And he got, you know, a couple of days in jail, and 150,000 euro fine. If you’re familiar with Roman a Conte, I mean, the 2020 Vintage was just released on a list price of $8,500 a bottle. And it’s already flipping on the market for 28,000. So 150,000 years isn’t really, you know, a big hit. So organized crime has looked at this and realized that they can, they can make big money. And so they’re they’re getting professional and they’re using professional printers and having the exact glass made and using professional bottling lines. And as long as the the supply chain remains as opaque as it is, because the supply chain and the wine world and spirits world is of the most opaque in the world. Producers aren’t really going to know that their bottles have been counterfeited and are flooding into markets especially, you know, little markets all around Asia, or, you know, another countries that aren’t heavily looked out for fine line.
Jacy Topps 18:41
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Christina Pickard 19:26
Going back to Kurniawan, many believe that he wasn’t acting alone in this massive fraud that he committed in the US at the very least others as you’ve touched upon many others great greatly profited off the back of his scam. Do you think any of these profiteers or collaborators could feel a sense of indebtedness to root to Rudy for taking one for the team? And if so, could they be helping him to continue to commit the same crimes in Indonesia? Or do you suspect Rudy is flying solo over there,
Maureen Downey 19:56
So that he’s not flying solo 100% Not flying solo, he is being supported by a network of people. Part of that his family part of that as other people. He all 100% took one for the team. Because these guys didn’t, nobody in a million years thought that Rudy was gonna get 10 years sentence. You know, they thought that he was gonna get 18 months time served slap on the wrist. So he 1,000% took one for the team. You know, I mean, people, if you look at and again, I’ve got this online for all the evidence that was from the trial, and everything is on wind farm.com. I got it all. We went in, we catalogued everything. We even looked at his bank records and stuff like that. But if you look at the post sale report from the seller and the seller to which for a long time remain the largest, you know, single seller auction in history, like $34 million. If you look at the post sale report on that, and you look at the last couple pages, you’ll notice all of the loans that Rudy got, people were loaning Rudy a million dollars at a time, individuals, people who were clients of Achor through acromial, Condit. And these are people that would then buy wine at auction. So, what is that? I mean, that’s absolutely creating fraud. They were paying Rudy to make these ones because why would you? Why would you loan a guy a million dollars through a wine auction house, and then buy wine at the auction and pay the 30%? Markup? Why not just give Rudy a million dollars and get a million dollars for the wine? Right? totally weird. So there were a lot of different types of support. The emails, you know, especially the emails about the catalogue introductions that have been made public between John capon and Rudy and Eric Greenberg, make it totally undeniable that cape on knew that these were counterfeit ones. You know, I mean, Rudy wrote emails saying like, well, the goal here is to market to people who don’t know Acker because Acker had a reputation for selling counterfeits, which just to
Christina Pickard 22:17
Clarify, for those who don’t know, it was the Auction House? Correct? Right. Is
Maureen Downey 22:21
One of the is the main auction house that Rudy used? Right. So yeah, I mean, there are a lot of people who are complicit in this crime who helped, who facilitated, who chose to look the other way at minimum. And there are a lot of people because I worked in these auctions in New York, right. I mean, Rudy and myself and John Capon, we were all friends. I started in auctions in 2000. And, you know, we were all about the same age Rudy’s a little bit younger, a couple years younger than John and I. But you know, we would all go to tastings and have dinners and, you know, it was all jolly good fun. And I know that they knew better, because I knew better. And suddenly, I left New York, and these guys just started a lot of the people that I knew, like Robert Bohr who I know knew better, decided to be part of the shitshow party, because it was fun. So these guys all just got wrapped up in the, you know, big lumber, big bottles, but they knew better.
Christina Pickard 23:18
And you knew for a long time before he got who was actually convicted years Correct?
Maureen Downey 23:23
Yeah. And sorted, sorted a lot of people in the industry. You know, it’s so here’s the thing, you cannot be both an expert and an ignoramus. So pick your path. Either you are complicit. Or you’re an idiot. And I know that a lot of these guys were complicit. Because I know that they knew because we talked about it.
Christina Pickard 23:48
Do you think or nuance conviction has had an impact on the growing global counterfeit wine problem? Has it helped to curb any counterfeiting?
Maureen Downey 23:57
Oh, no, oh, no, no, no, it’s absolutely caused more counterfeiting. Because again, when you’re organized crime and you look at this and you see, okay, one guy in America got, you know, a 10 year sentence, he served eight and a half for literally counterfeiting hundreds of millions of dollars and changing an industry. You know, in the wake of, of the Kurniawan fraud, wine prices went up, you know, exponentially because these guys were trading lines that didn’t exist anymore. Right? Well, the the producers saw that and said, Well, wait a minute, why are we getting such a small tranche of this? So you know, the whole on premier Bordeaux thing changed people now Bordeaux producers now hold back a lot more of their own supply. You know, many producers globally are looking to sell more direct to consumer so that they can hold some of these prices. I mean, prices have gone up massively. A rising tide rises all boats So you know, the price of a Napa Valley cab has gone from 75 bucks to of what an average of like 250. And we do have a bit of Rudy to thank for that. The other thing that changed is the fact that all producers of fine wine decided they needed to do something about anti fraud, but they all went cosmetic. So they all the a lot of them changed from digital from excuse me, from plate press printing to digital printing, to add micro writing and invisible ink. All of that is very easily counterfeited. By, oh, completely. I mean, you just buy a professional printer. And you know, so professional printers, what $550,000 If you’re organized crime making DRC that’s not a huge investment. So it’s no longer you know, the fear is no longer guys like Rudy, in their kitchen making wine. It’s now I mean, Google, go on YouTube, and Google, you know, counterfeit wine production in China. And you’ll see professional bottling lines of Bordeaux bottles, or the Sasa kya. Fraud, you know, and a lot of these frauds are only found because the supply in particular markets is way greater than the alleged distribution.
Christina Pickard 26:15
And are there counterfeiting hotspots like are there places that are making and selling fraudulent wines where there is particularly rampant in certain countries and regions?
Maureen Downey 26:24
They’re absolutely counterfeit hotspots. And I think it’s important to kind of separate some of those out a little bit. So we’ve got, clearly there’s a lot of counterfeit wine be made in China. And there are different types of counterfeit wine there. We’ve got IP infringement, you know, which is a type of counterfeiting, that is really big. And that’s, you know, the making of penne Floyd’s versus Penfolds type thing. But that’s not the kind of world that I’m I’m really focused on. Clearly China has a large production, but in terms of fine and rare wine, we’re looking at Northern Italy, Bulgaria, France, itself, Switzerland, so I think Switzerland is more the sale venue rather than the production zone. But the other thing that that’s that’s often found, and this is more for spirits, but conflict zones are big. Syria, Northern Ireland, well, it’s a it’s a pretty fast way for organized crime and terrorist groups to raise money. And the thing is, so going back to an earlier question that you asked, I didn’t fully answer it. If you’re an organized crime, and you look at this, and you realize that you can make counterfeit wines or spirits and make a massive amount of money. And if you get caught, maybe you get a slap on the wrist, maybe you get 150,000 euro fine. Well, that’s good business. You know, it’s easier than trafficking drugs all over the world. It’s easier than trafficking people. And if you get caught, you bet you barely get a slap on the wrist. Right? So unfortunately, what we’ve seen in the wake of Rudy, is that the game has shifted, and it’s not so much again, the guy in the kitchen. It’s much more of an organized crime, big group.
Christina Pickard 28:14
That’s really interesting, and terrifying. From your perspective, what are the latest tracing technologies you use in your authentication work? So I know there’s blockchain technology, there is a new company New Zealand, using forensic science to test the exact origins of the wine inside the bottle. Have we come a long way with these technologies or not? Is technology staying ahead of these fraudsters behind it. So
Maureen Downey 28:38
I’m going to separate that out into a couple things. So first of all, the technologies that we use to authenticate wine that we use, so I have been training authenticators for several years, we’ve got certified authenticators all over the globe, we’ve got a bunch of people in training, we’re looking for more. But so our network and using my methodologies, we don’t use any of those technologies. And to be honest, you know, for years, people have been trying to find a solution about the liquid. And there’s not much that you can tell from the liquid unless you have a sample. And if you have a sample, what are you going to do when you have a bottle, you’re going to you’re going to send a sample of every one
of your bottles in to get tested before you open it up. Like that’s just silly. Right? One of the biggest problems with testing the liquid is that you, you know, people were like, Oh, well can find the DNA of the vineyard. Well, what if they did three different blends and they released them at different times of the same wine? You know, there are just so many problems with that. And the biggest problem is having the database of authentic examples against which you would test that one. But again, who’s going to do that? In what instance? Is it logical that I’m going to have my wine tested to make sure that it’s the same thing? It makes sense if you’re a bulk wine producer? Right, and you, you, you go and you sample and you buy wine, you want to make sure that what you’re getting is actually what you bought. Because there you are going to still be doing testing to make sure that everything is sound and safe and healthy. But you know, for a bottle of wine, nobody’s going to do that. So that’s how that’s silly, you know, and mass spectrometry where you, you know, put a laser through the bottle. Again, it’s just not economically feasible. And it’s not user friendly enough. In the wake of the Kurniawan, fraud, producers online cosmetic, and the problem with cosmetic or even having like a chip on the back of the label or QR codes, all of these things have several flaws, the first of which is you have to be and the bubble tags, you know that that don’t cover the top, all of those things substantiate counterfeit refills. And we’ve seen a huge problem with counterfeit refills. I mean, a couple of years ago, there was a huge fraud in Europe, where there was a very organized group of people that were collecting bottles, from hotels and restaurants and refilling them and selling them online. And online auctions in the US in Europe, like hundreds of that or hundreds of 1000s of bottles, but 10s of millions of dollars. So that’s not helpful, right, all the cosmetic stuff is for the most part secretive. And if you know what to look for great. And or if there’s a bubble tag, great, you have to have the bottle in your hand to verify that fine wine isn’t purchased. By going to the store and picking up one bottle. Most people buy fine and rare wine as futures, you know, in response to an email ad from a retailer, you know, they buy it from an online store, they buy it at auction, they buy it from brokers, nobody has the bottle in hand. And you know, the only people that ever actually inspect the bottles are the auction houses. So because people think that counterfeit wine is an auction problem. It is not it’s a it’s a general secondary market problem, and sometimes a primary market problem. So none of those things are good. And the reason is that in order to be useful for to protect a producer and a brand, and to protect a consumer is that there has to be transparency through the supply chain, so that producers can know exactly where their bottles are going and how and how they’re moving. And if their allocations are being siphoned off to, you know, other markets where they’re not supposed to go. And if you’re the consumer, you need that proof of authenticity and provenance before you buy the bottle, right. So you need to be able to see some sort of proof online prior to purchase. So we’ve created a solution called the CHE vault. Che is French for seller. So che consulting che bold. And what what this solution does is it’s not only its web three, so it’s blockchain secured. It’s not only proof of authenticity, but it shows the actual provenance of the bottle, because every time the ownership changes, the online ledger of authenticity, and provenance is updated throughout the supply chain, that producers can demand that wholesalers and distributors and retailers scan the bottles in and they don’t have to be scanned in one at a time. We use actually library technology to be able to scan, you know, a pallet at a time. And then you know, the URL with an individual ledger of authenticity and provenance that is blockchain secured, can be put online, whether that’s online searcher or you know on a in an auction catalog, like we did in 2019. With Zach use auction, we sold three and a half million dollars. Every single bottle had a ledger of authenticity and provenance on it. And that’s what people need mean they need the information before they buy. Because if you’re close enough to scan a bottle, it’s too late.
Christina Pickard 34:00
And is it all finding rare wines, mostly the majority of find rare wines at a premium level being counterfeited?
Maureen Downey 34:07
Absolutely not. So here’s another fun Google the UK is awash with counterfeit yellowtail. I had heard that actually. So I mean, if you think about it, you know, if somebody’s counterfeiting money, they either make a whole lot of ones or a couple hundreds, right? Yeah. So and the yellowtail situation was a collaboration of Chinese and Eastern European based organized crime. And it’s been going on for years. That’s the other thing is that the yellowtail thing isn’t like a six month deal like this has been going on for years. So wine is counterfeited at every level. And one of the interesting things that we’re seeing is that, you know, traditionally, traditionally for the lot for the for the Kurniawan in the in the Rhoden stock frauds. You know, they really did focus on old and rare are in really expensive bottles and bottles that people didn’t drink very often. So, you know, who are these guys to know what a Magnum of 1950s of Florida tastes like? Everybody reads the tasting notes that a couple of critics wrote. And those critics actually wrote those tasting notes based on tastings that they did a lot of times with 30 Rodenstock bottles. So it could be that the baseline is actually counterfeit. Right.
Christina Pickard 35:26
That’s crazy. That is, yeah, that is a sort of Twilight Zone ask thought. My brain spinning. Totally.
Maureen Downey 35:35
So but I mean, who are these? If you were to take a case of 1945. Matan and put all 12 bottles in the cellar and age them for, you know, 70 years, they’re not going to taste exactly the same one to the next. Right. So unlike yellowtail, where if you go to a bar and you have a glass of yellowtail every night, think of it this way. If you drink Coca Cola every day and somebody gives you a Pepsi, you’re going to taste the difference, right? So I almost think that that person is easier to detect the frog than somebody who thinks that they’re drinking in 1845 Mouton.
Christina Pickard 36:16
That’s a really, really interesting point. Yeah, I mean, and yellowtail sells for $8 retail, right on the shelf. Absolutely. Someone could be drinking every day, you know,
Maureen Downey 36:26
Well Penfolds has had the biggest issue, you know, Penfolds and Carlo Rossi, you know, I think which is a Gallo brand in China are just counterfeited on massive scales. So, you know, the low end stuff gets hit just as much, but we’re also seeing a lot of like $40 bottles getting counterfeited. Now, I’d like to hear an interesting, yeah. $50 Brunello di Montalcino type stuff. So it’s across the board. Yeah,
Christina Pickard 36:58
That’s really that’s really fascinating. I’m gonna have to wrap up. I know, I feel like I could talk to you about this subject for hours. It’s so fascinating. I think the take home for collectors is to use your services, or at least to get some sort of authentication.
Maureen Downey 37:14
You know, so yeah, I would say like get bottles, right? If you’re, if you’re going to fork out big money to to buy rare bottles, have them looked at by somebody prior to purchase? You know, like, deal with it before. It’s a problem. And yeah, and the other takeaway is that Rudy is back in business.
Christina Pickard 37:32
Wow. Yes. And that is that is certainly a big takeaway. And I really appreciate you updating us on all of that and having been there on the ground, just giving us some real invaluable insights into Kurniawan Rudy Kurniawan movements as of late and we’ll have to check back in with you at another point soon and see if you have any more developments on that front. But yeah, in the in the meantime, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you. I’ve learned so much just in this this first 40 minutes. And I really appreciate your time. And, and thank you, thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
Maureen Downey 38:09
Thank you very much. Have a great day. You too.
Jacy Topps 38:17
Counterfeiting wine is nothing new. Criminals have been doing it since the production of wine itself. And while it makes for good true crime stories, and ripped from the headlines movies, it ultimately harms the wine producers, critics, consumers and the industry as a whole. What are your thoughts? If you liked today’s episode, we’d love to read your reviews and hear what you think. You can email us your comments and questions and podcasts at Wine Enthusiast. dotnet and hey, why not sell your wine loving friends to check us out to remember, you could subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify and anywhere else you listen to podcasts. You can also go to wine enthusiast.com backslash podcast for more episodes and transcripts. I’m Jacy Topps. Thanks for listening
Last Updated: November 9, 2023
