Collectors and vintners try to rid the auction market of fake wines

The Crusade Against
Collectors and vintners try to rid
the auction market of fake wines.
How big is the problem?
was one of the wine auction market’s last big bashes for
a while and, fittingly, everyone was drinking Champagne. In April 2008, Acker Merrall & Condit, the
most successful U.S. auction house for two years running, sold almost $6.29 million worth of wine in one
night. The highlight of the sale was an incredible
array of Champagne from the cellar of Robert Rosania,
a young New York real estate investor and possibly the
biggest bubbly collector in the world. Rosania’s consignment of 294 lots of Champagne fetched $2.2 million alone.
Some of the country’s biggest wine collectors filled the dining
room at Cru, a Wine Spectator Grand Award–winning restaurant
just north of Manhattan’s Washington Square. Many of them were
wealthy young men who had started collecting wine in the preceding 10 years, bidding against each other at auctions and tasting
together at lavish wine dinners where each tried to outdo the others in serving spectacular rarities. A fierce bidding battle broke out
over two bottles of Moët & Chandon Dom Pérignon Rosé 1959,
originally estimated at between $5,000 to $7,000. The pair eventually sold for $84,700. The sale raged into the late hours of the
night. At one point Rosania, 39, known to fellow collectors as “Big
Boy,” sabered open a jeroboam of Bollinger 1945 for all to try.
The sale took place at a critical juncture for the collectible wine
market. Wine auctions sat atop an impressive peak after three and
a half years of frenzied growth. From 2004 to the end of 2007, the
Wine Spectator Auction Index had risen 90 percent (try to imagine
the Dow Jones nearly doubling in less than four years). But it would
begin to slow in that first half of 2008, as the real estate bubble
burst, the financial markets headed toward a hard landing, and the
world entered the great recession. By the middle of 2009, the index was down 24 percent from its all-time high. Collectible wine
suddenly looked like another overvalued asset.
For three people at the Acker auction that night, it was proving
to be a toxic asset. Laurent Ponsot, John Kapon and Rudy Kurniawan
were suffering from a side effect of the good times—renewed
46
Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
Jeffery Salter
By Peter Hellman and Mitch Frank
DEC. 15, 2009 • Wine Spectator
47
Collector and energy executive William Koch
counterfeit WINES
concern about counterfeit wines.
Ponsot, the fourth-generation
proprietor of Domaine Ponsot in
Morey-St.-Denis, Burgundy, had
flown to New York for the sale, to
make sure 22 lots of wine supposedly from his domaine were withdrawn. An Acker client had seen
the wines in the auction catalog, found them suspicious and contacted Ponsot, who then alerted Kapon, Acker’s president, that several of the wines had never been produced by his winery. The night
of the auction, Kapon announced that the lots, estimated to sell for
a combined $400,000 to $600,000, were being withdrawn. “I guess
there were a couple of inconsistencies there, so we had to pull them,”
Kapon told the crowd, which loudly expressed its disappointment.
The third person in the room suffering from a counterfeitinduced migraine was Kurniawan, the young collector nicknamed
“Mr. 47” among fellow collectors for his love of 1947 Cheval-Blanc.
Kurniawan had consigned the suspect Ponsot wines for auction.
Now, more than a year later, he has dropped from sight. He failed
to respond to nine interview requests, by phone, e-mail and through
associates, for this report. But he is still selling wine—Christie’s
auctioned off 60 lots of Burgundy and Bordeaux from Kurniawan’s
cellar in September.
And despite repeated pleas from Ponsot, Kurniawan still has not
revealed where he got the suspect wine. Now he is being sued by
another collector for fraud. To some people, he is a victim—a generous man with a great taste for fantastic wine who got duped.
To others, he is a con man, a symbol of the excesses of the wine
auction boom.
Since that Acker sale, the pain has spread. High-profile lawsuits
over counterfeiting have shaken the auction world. Collectors have
sued auction houses, an auction house has sued a client, and collectors have sued each other. The FBI is investigating possible fraud
and has issued subpoenas to several auction houses.
sniffing out a
“I plan to get my money back, and I plan to force
the auction houses and retailers to make
serious changes.” —William Koch
48
Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
One collector, Florida energy executive William Koch (pronounced “coke”), has launched an organized campaign of litigation, hoping to force auction houses to change their behavior. He
has filed suits against a wine broker, three auction houses and two
collectors who consigned wines he purchased. “I plan to put people
in jail,” says Koch. “I plan to get my money back, and I plan to
force the auction houses and retailers to make serious changes.”
In France, Ponsot continues his detective work to find out who
exactly produced as many as 91 counterfeit bottles with his family
name on them. He has sworn to find whoever is responsible for
faking his wines and has urged his fellow producers to work together
to stamp out the problem.
All these parties have come face to face with a single inconvenient truth: The apex of the wine market, where a case of
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1990 can sell for $160,000, and
one jeroboam of Mouton-Rothschild 1945 fetched more than
$300,000, is infiltrated with counterfeits. The burning question
is: How deep does the problem go?
verdict: real
I’ve been robbed ...
Does the capsule length and color match known
examples? Has the metal aged naturally, or has
it been rubbed to try and simulate wear and tear?
Authenticators usually cut the bottom of the
capsule to check the cork—is the name and vintage branded on it? Is the cork the right length?
Any signs of alteration?
P r ov en a n c e
A collectible wine’s greatest asset it its provenance—where has it been? Négociant, retailer
or shipper labels provide clues. And authenticators can check with auction houses or past owners to find out more. Pristine provenance is why
wines straight from producers’ or négociants’
libraries are the most valued at auction.
Verdict: fake
G l ass
Bottles come in infinite variety. Experts check
the weight, quality and punt size and look for
embossed writing or symbols. Downey recently
examined a “1961 Pétrus” that came in a blue
glass bottle, rather than dark green.
L a b el
A treasure trove of clues—experts can determine
what sort of paper was used, and check with the
château. They can examine the ink for telltale
marks, spots or gaps—evidence the label came
from a photocopier, not an ink press. Pétrus labels have a wealth of detail, especially the portrait of St. Peter, with the stars in his crown, his
key to heaven, the creases in his robe and the
surrounding ivy. On the fake label at right, details
behind St. Peter and in his face and hand seem
to be missing. Is the glue on the back consistent
with real bottles’? Look at the label on the fake
bottle—it looks too small, like it was made for a
750ml format.
S ig ns of age
Jeffery Salter
A
s CEO of the Guess fashion empire, Paul Marciano knows
a thing or two about fake merchandise—counterfeit couture
costs the fashion industry an estimated $9.2 billion annually, according to the World Customs Organization. But he
didn’t know until last spring that there were fakes lurking
in his own wine cellar.
In 1991, Marciano purchased eight
cases of Château Pétrus 1982 from
New York retailer Zachys. In May of
that year he bought six cases at $6,640
per case and in October he bought
two more at $5,940 each. Total cost
with shipping and insurance? More
than $52,000. And he kept buying
various vintages of Pétrus, accumulating 400 bottles by January of this year.
The Bordeaux lover hoped that the
wine would appreciate in value.
He wasn’t disappointed. In January
2009, when he decided to sell a few
dozen cases of Pétrus, ranging from
1961 through 1990, Zachys’ auction
division estimated that the ’82 Pétrus
alone could sell for an estimated
$24,000 to $36,000 per case. But after
holding the wines for five weeks, the
auctioneer told Marciano that, he
says, “Eighty bottles of my [’82] wines
was estate-bottled and how much sold? When did the estate make
changes to labels and glass? How many large-format bottles did they
sell? They can check with the producers, but records from past years can
be spotty, or nonexistent. They also check with past owners.
Downey routinely contacts producers and importers and often
solicits other opinions—fellow wine auction specialists and printing
experts who can analyze paper quality and printing techniques.
Below are two magnums of Château Pétrus 1961, a coveted wine on
the auction market (three magnums sold at Sotheby’s New York in
2008 for more than $20,000 per bottle) and a prime target for counterfeiters. Bill Koch bought these magnums from auction houses and
sent both to the château for examination. According to Koch, Pétrus’
staff informed him the bottle on the left is real, the one on the right is
fake. Below is a guide to what authenticators are looking for. —M.F.
co r ks a n d ca psu l es
Aaron Houston /The New York Times/Redux
John Kapon, Acker Merrall & Condit
M
aureen Downey never calls a bottle of wine fake. “Only a producer can do that,” says the former fine and rare wine specialist
for auction houses, who formed Chai Consulting in 2006 to help
clients build (counterfeit-free) collections. “All I can say is, ‘This
bottle is inconsistent with known authentic examples.’ ” She’s
looking for problems, and if she finds them, she has to tell her client
that what they thought was a rare, expensive piece of art is probably
only a conversation piece.
While critics of the auction houses complain that the houses should
guarantee what they’re selling, authenticating rare wine is not cut and
dried. Because European producers often allowed négociants and
large retail chains to purchase wine by the barrel, there are in many
cases different bottlings of the same wines out there.
Authenticators need to know the history of properties—how much
What about signs of age and dirt on the label—
is it mottled with dirt or did someone rub it in to
create an aged look? Is wear and tear consistent
with aging and oxidation, or did someone scuff
the bottle? Do water stains look like they developed on a bottle being stored lying sideways in
a cellar, or was water poured on the label while
it lay flat, before it was affixed to the bottle?
DEC. 15, 2009 • Wine Spectator
49
counterfeit WINES
Sometimes empty bottles of great wine are lifted from trash cans
and get refilled. (See “Sniffing Out a Fake,” page 49.)
Because few people have tasted truly old wines, and because
counterfeiters often substitute good young wine or put bogus labels
on bottles of less-valuable wine from the same time period, spotting a fake is more art than science. “Everyone’s an expert. I’ve had
so many people taste something and say, ‘This can’t be ’50 Lafleur,’ ”
says one collector. “Really? Have you ever had a Right Bank
Bordeaux from the ’50s?”
But every collector has tasted plenty of suspicious bottles. “The
worst was an ’82 Haut-Brion in magnum at a tasting sponsored by
an auction house,” says Tom Black, a Nashville businessman and
collector who has 20,000 bottles at home and 9,000 on consignment to Grand Award–winning Alto restaurant in New York.
“It must have been South American wine.”
While high-priced collectibles garner the lion’s share of attention, fake everyday wine is a growing problem too. In 2007,
German and Italian police uncovered an international crime
ring bringing unlabeled Puglian table wine into Germany, labeling it Brunello di Montalcino or Barolo and selling it to Hamburg restaurants.
Thirst for wine in developing
countries has exacerbated the
problem. Don St. Pierre Jr., managing partner of Shanghai-based
wine importer ASC Wines, says
wine counterfeiting in China
functions on both high and low
price tiers. “One target is Lafite
Rothschild, which is very popular
and consumers pay a very high
price for,” he says. “The second
type is not specific to a brand—
cheap table wine is being imported and relabeled as Bordeaux
AOC or Italian DOCG.”
Collectible wine, however,
garners more attention, for several reasons. The profit margins
Private collector Paul Marciano, CEO of Guess
Jeff Zacharia, Zachys Wine Auctions
for counterfeiters are much
Of such disputes, wine-fueled lawsuits are made. Regardless of
higher for rare, old collectibles—after all, it costs little more to
what the arbitrators decide, Marciano feels betrayed. “I feel like
“produce” Le Pin than it does Le Plonk. And older wines are more
I’ve been robbed of my hobby, my passion, my love.”
difficult to authenticate, especially anything from before the
Counterfeiting worldwide is a $200 billion a year industry,
1970s. But a big reason is that the auction market is reliant on
according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
trust—collectors depend on auction houses to determine the
Development (OECD). That’s larger than the GDP of 150 counprovenance of the wine. Tasting a rare, old wine is a rich experitries—and the organization says it’s a conservative estimate.
ence, and nagging doubts over authenticity can ruin that. Is it
As globalization renders borders increasingly meaningless, the
real, you wonder?
problem is growing. Old favorites, such as luxury watches and
Decades ago, many of what are now the most collectible wines
high-end clothes and handbags, remain prime targets. But counin the world were bottled by négociants and retailers, leading
terfeiters today fake everything from T-shirts to car parts, DVDs
to plenty of packaging variation. Records at top Bordeaux châto prescription drugs, and even baby food. Millions of Chinese
teaus and Burgundy domaines, which are now multimillionapples showed up on Taiwan streets a few years ago with “Washdollar businesses but were glorified family farms as recently as
ington State” stickers on them.
Certain tricks of the counterfeit wine trade are timeless. One
w i n e s p e c tato r .co m
Follow the latest Auction News in our Collecting section. Web site members
tactic is to buy a cheaper vintage of a great wine and alter the lacan check auction highlights and prices for more than 12,000 collectible wines
bel and cork. Digital imaging has made faking labels far easier.
in our Auction Price Database. Get it all at www.winespectator.com/121509.
50
Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
left: Donato Sardella/WireImage/Getty Images; right: Casey Kelbaugh
were not fit for auction.” In other words, they were likely fakes.
According to Marciano, Zachys Wine Auctions at first denied
that its retail arm had sold the wine to Marciano. But he claims he
has the original invoices to prove it, some with notations by Zachys
Wine Auctions president Jeff Zacharia. Last May, Marciano filed
a lawsuit against Zachys in a Los Angeles court, charging that he
had been sold fake wine in 1991 and asking for damages. The judge
stayed the case for now, saying that under contract terms, Marciano
must seek arbitration in New York first. Only if he is dissatisfied
with the outcome can he sue. The matter is pending.
Zacharia, 48, calls the case without merit. Marciano claims that
his 1982 Pétrus was always stored in “secure cellars.” But Zacharia
says, “Where has this wine been for the last 18 years? It’s been in
more than one cellar. It makes no sense that we’d have actively
pursued getting his wine for consignment if we knew it was fake.”
Zacharia also says that among the more than 40 cases of wine Marciano wanted to consign, not all was bought from Zachys. “We
know he bought some from us,” says Zacharia. “He bought ’82
Pétrus from others as well. There are a lot of unanswered questions.
Were these the same wines he bought from us?”
counterfeit WINES
a few decades ago, are notoriously incomplete. No one can
accurately say, for example, how
many magnums of Pétrus 1945
were produced. Some will say
Pétrus produced no magnums
before World War II. Others say,
who knows what négociants and
retailers did with wines back
then? As a result, there is no reliable estimate for how much
collectible wine on the market is fake.
There is certainly a problem, however. In the case of Pétrus 1982,
Richard Brierley, who headed Christie’s New York wine department until recently, says any consignment of that wine is, “Guilty
until proven innocent.” Christian Moueix, whose family owns
Pétrus, says, “Nobody knows precisely how serious counterfeiting
is for collectible wines. Of course, I have seen examples of fake
bottles of Château Pétrus.”
While counterfeit wines have been around for centuries, the
stakes grew higher as prices kept rising as the auction market
boomed. Since 1993, when New York State legalized wine auctions by retailers, the United States has been the dominant
market. The atmosphere and clientele at auctions changed as
well. They were once staid, daytime affairs frequented by brokers and sommeliers. As new auctions houses such as Zachys
and Acker entered the game and then began to compete with
Christie’s and Sotheby’s, they held the events at fine restaurants
like Daniel and Cru. Evening sales were held, often accompanied by gala dinners where fabulous wines were poured. New,
younger collectors began to show up more, with a passion for
wine and with plenty of cash.
No one capitalized on that enthusiasm better than Kapon, 37,
who turned his small Manhattan wine store, which his father and
grandfather had both managed, into the leading U.S. auction
player, selling almost $60 million of wine through auctions and
online bidding in 2008. Kapon attended and sometimes hosted
marathon collector wine dinners where thousands of dollars worth
of wine were opened. His tasting notes, posted online, described
“Out of 17,000 bottles I consigned, Koch
found a couple of fakes. That’s not fraud, that’s
a mistake. I did not knowingly put fake wine
out there.” —Eric Greenberg
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Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
MOney be damned
B
ill Koch will never win a Mr. Congeniality award. The
founder and president of Oxbow Group, a Florida-based
energy conglomerate, is ambitious, passionate and tireless.
He also knows his way around a courtroom. He and his
two brothers fought an on-and-off, 20-year-long legal battle over his share of the company his father created. Koch
subpoenaed his own mother. He walked away with a settlement
of $470 million.
In addition to business, sailing, antique firearms and art, Koch,
69, has a great passion for wine, and in the late 1980s he began
collecting. As with many of his hobbies, he threw himself completely into it, buying thousands of bottles a year of collectible
Bordeaux. He bought four of the famous “Jefferson Bordeaux,”
the bottles unearthed in 1985 by German wine dealer Hardy
Rodenstock that he claimed were from the late 18th century and
may have been ordered for the
sage of Monticello. (See “The
Mysterious Mr. Rodenstock,”
page 56.) By the end of 2005,
Koch had spent more than $12
million on a 40,000-bottle cellar,
including extensive verticals
of Pétrus, Mouton-Rothschild,
Latour and Lafite.
Koch has now switched hobbies, however, from collecting
to vengeance. He has launched
a money-be-damned campaign
to reform the wine auction market. Based on reports from experts who combed through his
cellars, he estimates that several
hundred bottles, for which he
Private collector Tom Black
paid almost $4 million, are
left: John Von Pamer; right: Kristina Marie Krug
Private collector Robert Rosania
incredible evenings and wines that tasted like “Rock ’n’ Roll”
and “T ’n’ A” (“Tannin and Acidity”).
But as the market rose and all these fantastic collectibles went
on the block, some people began to ask questions. “You started
to worry in the 1980s, but it was minute,” says Serena Sutcliffe,
who heads Sotheby’s wine department. “The explosion started
in the second half of the 1990s and this century. It was an absolute explosion.”
Where were all these fabulous wines, many never seen previously at auction, coming from? Were they too good to be true? One
collector decided to force the issue.
counterfeit WINES
fakes. His 2006 lawsuit against Rodenstock over the authenticity of the Jefferson bottles is ongoing in a New York
court. Rodenstock denies the court’s jurisdiction. But that suit was just a warmup for a broader crusade. Over the last
four years, Koch has spent more than
$5 million investigating and suing at
least seven parties he claims sold him
fake wine.
In several of the suits, the auction
houses responded by offering his money
back. But he has rejected all offers to
settle. To Koch, the auction houses either knowingly or negligently sold fakes.
He wants punitive damages. He has yet
to win a case and he has yet to put forPrivate collector Eric Greenberg
ward his experts’ evidence that his wines
are fakes. But he’s patient and he undoubtedly knows that a long legal battle will draw attention to
his cause.
While he’s become a gadfly of the auction community, he insists his efforts are all about his love for wine. “What separates
artistic wines from mass produced wines is that you can taste
the love that went into making them,” Koch says. “I’m highly
offended by the way these sellers of fakes are making a mockery
of that love.”
Koch’s buying habits suggest he was
asking for trouble—buying wine in great
volume, focusing on properties that are
especially appealing to counterfeiters
and often failing to inspect the wines
before the sales. And it’s worth noting
that if he has found “several hundred”
fakes, that’s only 1 percent to 2 percent
of his 40,000 bottle collection. But he
argues that it’s the auction houses’ responsibility to prevent any fakes from
going on the block.
“I buy a lot of art and a lot of wine and
I want people to know that if they’re
cheating me, man, I’m coming after
them,” says Koch. “[The auction houses]
put out these slick catalogs that describe
lots glowingly. If an auction house were
to say this was Jesus’ bottle, we’ve inspected it, and you come back to them and say it’s fake, they
say, oh, look at the fine print in the back of the catalog. It says
that you can’t rely on anything we say. Everything is sold ‘as is.’
I find that extremely offensive.” Two judges, however, have accepted that argument, dismissing some of Koch’s claims, ruling
that by bidding he agreed to the auctioneers’ rules.
In 2004 and 2005, Koch spent $370,000 at Zachys auctions on
19 bottles that he now alleges are fake or possibly fake, and he’s
A Crowded docket
Bill Koch has made it clear he plans
to use litigation to bring pressure
and force changes in the auction
market. He’s filed five lawsuits so
far, and promises more. It could
take some time—and a lot of
money—to sort it all out.
Top: eve fowler; bottom: Jeffery Salter
Koch v. Hardy Rodenstock, aka Meinhard Goerke
Filed: Aug. 31, 2006
Allegation: Koch accuses German wine broker Rodenstock of fraud. Koch bought four
of the “Jefferson Bordeaux” in 1988 from retailers in London and Chicago. Rodenstock
was the original seller of the wines. Koch now
says they’re fakes.
Status: Refiled. A federal judge dismissed the
suit last year, arguing New York was not the
correct venue. Koch filed an amended complaint, and the suit is proceeding. Rodenstock has denied the accusations and refused to participate, claiming the court has
no jurisdiction over a German citizen.
Koch v. Eric Greenberg and
Zachys Wine Auctions
Filed: Oct. 26, 2007
Allegation: Koch alleges that
19 bottles he bought at two
Zachys’ auctions in 2004 and
2005 for $370,000 are fake.
Of those, 11 were consigned by
Greenberg. Moreover, Koch
accuses Greenberg of knowing they were fakes, and accuses Zachys of either knowing or negligently passing
them along.
Status: Pending. Zachys and
Greenberg have denied the accusations. A judge dismissed Koch’s allegations of fraud and misrepresentation against
Zachys, writing that the auction catalog
states the wines are sold “as is,” without any
warranties, that Koch agreed to those rules
by bidding, and that he failed to inspect the
wines before the sale. Koch’s claim that
Zachys violated New York business law
through deceptive practices and false advertising is pending, as are all his claims against
Greenberg.
Koch v. Chicago Wine Company
and Julienne Importing
Company
Filed: March 28, 2008
Allegation: Koch claims that the Chicago
Wine Company, a retailer and auction house,
sold him 15 bottles of counterfeit wine for
$150,000, including a “Jefferson Bordeaux.”
He further alleges that 14 bottles of wine imported by Julienne that he purchased (including some of the 15 he bought from the
Chicago Wine Company) are counterfeit.
Ironically, Koch was a major investor in the
Chicago Wine Company for seven years.
Status: Pending. Both companies have denied the accusations.
Koch v. Acker Merrall &
Condit
Filed: April 23, 2008
Allegation: Koch accuses Acker of selling
him five fake wines at auctions and private
sales in 2005 and 2006, worth a combined
$77,925.
Status: Pending. Acker has denied the accusations. A judge dismissed two of Koch’s allegations, including fraud and unfair trade
practices under Florida law. Three allegations
remain.
Koch v. Rudy Kurniawan
Filed: Sept. 10, 2009
Allegation: Koch accuses Kurniawan of
fraud, claiming the Indonesia-born wine collector was the source of the five bottles from
Acker that Koch alleges are fakes.
Status: Pending. Sources close to Kurniawan
say he has hired an attorney to fight the
claims.
DEC. 15, 2009 • Wine Spectator
55
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charges dismissed was denied. Federal District Judge Barbara Jones
of New York’s Southern District wrote in her opinion, “the particularly egregious nature of Greenberg’s alleged conduct is demonstrated by his decision to sell wine at auction that he knew two
experts had determined to be counterfeit.”
“Out of 17,000 bottles I consigned,” Greenberg says, “he found
a couple of fakes. That’s not fraud, that’s a mistake. I did not knowingly put fake wine out there. And who do you think recommended
Edgerton to him? It was me.”
“There’s a chain of collectors who don’t cry foul,” says Koch.
“They sell the wine back to the auction houses, who gladly sell it
to someone else.”
Two days before the Ponsot bottles were scheduled to be auctioned at Cru, Koch filed a suit against Acker, alleging that five
bottles he bought at auctions and private sales in 2005 and 2006
for $77,925 are counterfeit. The wines include a 1949 Château
Lafleur, auctioned for $10,575, a 1947 Pétrus purchased directly
from Acker for $30,000, a 1945 Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny
Cuvée Vieilles Vignes and two bottles of Domaine de la RomanéeConti Romanée-Conti 1937.
Acker offered to refund Koch’s money upon return of the disputed wine, but Koch rejected the offer. Acker’s lawyers have countered that the house’s catalog states that it sells goods “as is” and
that any statement therein “is opinion only and shall not be relied
on by any bidder.” Acker also pointed out that Koch had been
The Mysterious Mr. Rodenstock
G
erman wine dealer Hardy Rodenstock
rose to prominence in the wine world
for hosting extraordinary dinners in the
1980s where guests, including celebrities and wine writers, were treated to
dozens of rare bottles, including 19th century wines. They were Bacchanalian affairs—
one featured 125 vintages of Château
d’Yquem, the host’s favorite. But now, as
Rodenstock fights off lawsuits and accusations that he is “a master forger,” his invitations are not so sought after.
Rodenstock, 68, who changed his name
from Meinhard Goerke, was a manager for
various pop music acts. He became a wine
collector in the late ’70s, and by the early
’80s was buying and selling old vintages.
His tastings garnered plenty of publicity.
Most guests were happy to sample his
rarities, but a few raised questions. At two
notable dinners in 1989 and 1990, he served
imperials of Pétrus from 1934, 1928, 1926,
1924 and 1921. Christian Moueix, whose family owns the property, told Wine Spectator in
1998, “It’s hard to believe [those bottles]
ever existed.” Rodenstock countered, “Just
because a château does not have records to
verify these rare bottles doesn’t mean they
don’t exist.”
Rodenstock’s most famous find was the
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Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
“Jefferson Bordeaux.” He claims that in 1985
he got a call from Paris—an 18th century home
was being demolished and someone had
found wine in a hidden cellar. Several of the
bottles, marked with the names of Bordeaux
first-growths and vintages 1784 and 1787, also
had the initials Th.J. engraved on them.
Rodenstock believed they were ordered for
Thomas Jefferson during his stint as U.S. Ambassador to France. Rodenstock sold several
to individuals through retailers and auction
houses. The first, a 1787 Château Lafite, was
auctioned off by Christie’s to publisher Malcolm Forbes for $156,000, still a record price
for a single bottle.
Koch bought four of the Jefferson wines,
but now alleges they’re fakes, and the initials carved into the glass with modern
power tools. Combing through his cellar, he
has found other fakes that he claims were
sourced from Rodenstock, including a
magnum of ’21 Pétrus (on the cover of this
issue). When Koch filed suit in federal court
in New York in 2006, Rodenstock vowed to
fight the claims. Responding to Koch’s allegations, Rodenstock wrote “Nonsense!” in
a fax to Wine Spectator. But once discovery procedures began, Rodenstock
claimed the court had no jurisdiction over
a German citizen and refused to cooperate.
He has also claimed in letters to the court
that Koch’s investigators have threatened
witnesses in Germany, a charge Koch denies. The legal maneuvering continues, and
the case drags on.
Despite the questions over his wines,
Rodenstock is still in business. Koch has
presented invoices that he claims show
Rodenstock shipping wine to the United
States as recently as November 2008.
Rodenstock still hosts wine dinners, too,
but they are a little more modest—according to Stern magazine, in December 2007,
about 30 clients paid more than $4,000
each to attend a Hamburg dinner where
Rodenstock opened a jeroboam of 1945
Mouton-Rothschild. Not quite 1784 Yquem,
but still Bacchanalian.
—M.F.
STERN/Picturepress
filed a suit against the auctioneer for knowingly selling him fake
wine. Jeff Zacharia denies any wrongdoing. “We offered him a refund. Bill has said he is trying to single-handedly change the industry through the courts,” he says. “In any industry, there are ­issues.
I never find going through the legal system an efficient and productive way to solve problems.”
Many of the wines Koch bought at the Zachys auction had
been consigned by one-time Silicon Valley entrepreneur and
collector Eric Greenberg. Koch is suing Greenberg as well. According to Koch, the wines never should have been offered for
sale because both Sotheby’s and Christie’s, as well as an independent expert hired by Greenberg, had inspected the wines for
possible auction and identified some as counterfeit. The independent expert, wine appraiser William Edgerton, had affixed
a numbered and signed tape to each bottle he inspected in
Greenberg’s cellar, corresponding to his notes on that wine.
Koch later hired Edgerton to inspect wines that he had purchased
from the Zachys auctions. Descending into Koch’s Palm Beach cellar, Edgerton says, “I immediately saw two wines that still had my
tapes on them.”
Greenberg offered to reimburse Koch for the rejected wine, adding $45,000 in interest and other fees. “I even offered to do an auction of the wines to benefit a children’s charity,” says Greenberg.
But that didn’t satisfy Koch, who wants to go to trial to obtain punitive damages. Last October, Greenberg’s motion to have the
counterfeit WINES
auctions centered on consignments from Kurniawan’s cellar. Mr.
47 wasn’t identified by name in the
catalogs, which simply referred to
“THE Cellar,” but collectors knew.
Kurniawan was on hand to work
the room. The first sale, in January, raised $10.6 million. The second, “THE Cellar II,” in October,
grossed $24.7 million, a single-sale record that still stands.
But while Kapon was promoting Kurniawan in the auction catalog as “mega-collector of this century,” trouble was afoot. It surfaced when Ponsot called Kapon to alert him to the suspected fakes
at the 2008 sale. Experts can differ on whether an old wine is real,
but Ponsot was adamant. Six lots of Ponsot’s Clos-St.-Denis, for
example, were offered, in vintages 1929 through 1978, including
a case of 1971 estimated at $30,000 to $50,000. Yet, Ponsot did
not produce Clos-St.-Denis until 1982. Another glaring inconsistency was a single bottle lot of Ponsot Clos de la Roche 1929 (estimated at $14,000 to $19,000), labeled as domaine-bottled. “My
grandfather, Hippolyte, would have made that wine,” Ponsot says.
“But he didn’t start domaine bottling until 1934.”
Questioned about those suspect Ponsots, Kapon says he did not
ask Kurniawan to provide invoices or other evidence of where he
got the wines that Acker would offer at auction. “It’s tough, because as the biggest wine buyer in this century, he has many sources,”
Kapon says, “and he’s just not organized by nature.” As for how
Kurniawan was able to source wines other collectors could not,
Kapon says, “There are incredible caches that keep popping up,
and people who buy the most wines get the most offers.”
The small but fanatical Burgundy-collecting community was
shaken by the last-minute withdrawal of the lots disclaimed by
Ponsot. They’d been offered by an auctioneer and consignor with broad experience in tasting such wines, often at
the same table. “I’ve seen Rudy nail 10
out of 12 old Burgundies tasted blind,”
says Kapon, who says he was blindsided
by the withdrawn offerings. He calls
them “fakes at the highest level.”
Even Ponsot agrees that the wines
may well be real old Burgundy dressed
up with his labels. Kurniawan, looking
shell-shocked at the end of the auction,
told Wine Spectator that night, “It’s Burgundy. Shit happens.”
An investigation by Wine Spectator
raises questions about wines of the two
other famed Burgundian producers
Kurniawan consigned at the April 2008
auction: Domaine Armand Rousseau
and Domaine Georges Roumier. Some
of those bottles bore the labels and
stampings of two long-established overseas retailers, conferring a level of trust
that they had been impeccably sourced.
But neither Berry Bros. & Rudd, the
“[Kurniawan] did an amazing series of dinners
with the biggest collectors on the planet, and
everyone was blown away by these wines.”
entitled to inspect the wine prior to bidding, but had failed to do
so. New York Supreme Court judge Martin Shulman threw out the
fraud allegation, but is allowing Koch to sue Acker for breach of
contract and violation of state consumer protection statutes. The
case is ongoing.
Mr. 47
A
fter the Acker sale in April 2008, Koch’s next target was
not a surprise. In September 2009, he filed a lawsuit in a
Los Angeles court against Mr. 47—Rudy Kurniawan, 33,
the collector who had consigned the rejected Ponsot
wines. Koch says his investigators have discovered that
Kurniawan was the source of the five alleged counterfeits
he bought from Acker. At press time, Kurniawan had yet to respond to the suit.
Facts about Kurniawan are hard to come by. He has told several people that he was born in Indonesia to Chinese parents,
the son of a successful businessman. He has also said he came
to the States to attend college in California. According to an
investigation conducted for Koch by a team that includes several former FBI agents, his given name is Zhen Wang Huang.
According to an interview by Corie Brown in the Los Angeles
Times in 2006, Kurniawan first tasted
wine at a birthday party for his father
at a restaurant in San Francisco when
he was in his mid-20s.
The wine was Opus One 1995.
Kurniawan said the wine bug bit him
instantly and he was soon buying the
most rarified California labels. He met
Kapon, who helped introduce him to
rare Bordeaux and Burgundy. Before
he was 30, Kurniawan was spending
“$1 million per month on wine,” according to the Brown article. He held
lavish wine dinners attended by Kapon
and other collectors. One longtime
collector says, “He’s got a phenomenal
palate and he’s a generous person.”
Another recalled a blowout dinner at
Cru a few years ago that the table was
supposed to split. “Rudy picked up the
entire tab for $80,000,” he says. A
third says Kurniawan had more money
than knowledge.
For Acker, Kurniawan was also a
Private collector Rudy Kurniawan
mega-client. In 2006, Acker held two
58
Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
—John Kapon
counterfeit WINES
fees. “There is some unfinished
business, and we decided we
wouldn’t sell any more of his wines
until we got some answers as to the
source of the Ponsot wines and
such,” says Kapon.
But Kapon insists there was
nothing out of the ordinary about
the loans. “I have been surprised by the attempts Koch and others
have made to try to create something nefarious out of these bridge
loans that Rudy obtained from Acker and from collectors,” he says.
“Rudy had already paid off several million [dollars] of loans before
THE Cellar II [sale]. Auction houses sometimes give consignors
advance payments. [Acker] has a perfected first lien, and we are
continuing to liquidate collateral to pay down the debt, and we are
in regular communication with Rudy to ensure that he is cooperating fully to pay off the judgment, which he has been. While I
don’t have the exact figures in front of me, I would guess that over
40 percent of the debt has already been paid down.”
Kurniawan is also still selling wine. On Sept. 12 in New York,
Christie’s sold 60 lots from his cellar, including three magnums of
his old favorite, 1947 Cheval-Blanc. There were also 25 lots of
DRC—highlights included two magnums of 1962 La Tâche and a
methuselah of 1985 La Tâche. Kapon approved the sale and all the
proceeds went to paying down Kurniawan’s debt. Asked whether
Christie’s hesitated to accept Kurniawan’s wines or considered
identifying him in the catalog text, Charles Curtis, head of Christie’s New York wine department, said, “We don’t vet wines in our
consignments predicated on the consignor. All wines are subject
to careful scrutiny by our specialists. It is our policy not to identify
consignors, revealing information only when explicitly requested
by them to do so.”
“We have a universe of terroirs in Burgundy.
I won’t see them abused.”
—Laurent Ponsot
60
Protecting Terroir
M
any producers don’t want to discuss the counterfeiting issue. (Several refused to speak on the record for this story.)
Others choose to focus on safeguarding their newer wines.
(See “The Fight Against Fakes,” page 66.).
But in the year and a half since he went to the Acker
auction, Ponsot has been relentlessly outspoken on the
subject. He feels that wines made from the best parcels in Burgundy
are too great a thing to tolerate fakes. “We have a universe of
terroirs in Burgundy,” he says. “I won’t see them abused.”
Over lunch at New York’s Jean-Georges restaurant on the day
after the Ponsot lots were withdrawn, Kurniawan pledged to help
Ponsot find the source of the fakes. But so far, according to Ponsot,
all Kurniawan has given him is the name and two telephone numbers of a person in Jakarta, Indonesia, whom Kurniawan identified
as the source of the wines. In Jakarta, that name is as common as
“John Smith” would be in London, Ponsot says. Calling the phone
numbers proved fruitless—no surprise to Ponsot. “I’ve traveled in
the Far East since I was a teenager,” he says. “I’m familiar with all
the collectors of my wine in the region. They’d have known of any
available old Ponsots. A friend in Singapore told me, ‘Any bottle
of yours circulating within a thousand miles of here, I’ll buy it.’ ”
Ponsot’s own sleuthing has led him much closer to his hillside
opposite: Jean Louis Bernuy/Nuits Saint Georges
London wine dealer founded in 1698, nor Nicolas, the French wine
chain founded in 1822, have any record of selling some of the wines
emblazoned with their logos. Alun Griffiths, wine director at Berry
Bros., says that while it’s possible a case of 1949 Rousseau Chambertin is authentic, “from all the evidence I can gather, it does not
appear that these wines have been through our hands.”
Rather than rely on a paper trail, Kapon says that he relied on
tastings to ascertain the authenticity of Kurniawan’s wines. “He
did an amazing series of dinners with the biggest collectors on
the planet, and everyone was blown away by these wines. If they
tasted so good, and the corks were branded as they should be—
the old Rousseau’s and DRC’s are always branded—what more
did we have to do?”
What most of the auction-goers did not know that day as Kapon
took bids for the Rousseau and Roumier wines, was that Kurniawan,
who had been freely buying art as well as wine, was deep in debt
to Acker. In January 2007, soon after the $24.7 million auction of
“THE Cellar II,” Acker loaned him $1 million. It was one of 19
loans from the auctioneer over the next year and a half. Before interest, the total reached $8.84 million.
It’s not unheard of for auction houses to make loans to regular
consigners. Sometimes they offer money in advance for eventual
consignments. But Kurniawan appeared to be in financial trouble—
the proceeds of Kurniawan’s lots at the April 2008 auction, including the withdrawn Ponsots, were intended to partially pay down
his debt, according to several collectors close to Kapon.
Just three weeks after the Ponsot auction, Acker took legal action against Kurniawan. In a debtor’s proceeding, it moved to
impound 18 artworks owned by Kurniawan, including works by
Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, Gene Davis, and
Ed Ruschka.
Kapon was apparently unaware that in January 2008, four months
before Acker took them as loan collateral, Kurniawan had already
used those same 18 artworks, along with seven others, as collateral
for a $3 million loan from Emigrant Bank Fine Art, a New York
lender. A source at Emigrant told Wine Spectator, “We weren’t worried about the loan because we felt the collateral way outweighed
the loan’s value.”
On Nov. 5, 2008, shortly after discovering Kurniawan’s “unpermitted lien” to Acker, Emigrant declared its own loan to
Kurniawan to be in default. When Kurniawan failed to pay off
the debt of $2.23 million plus interest and fees, Emigrant sold
most of the art, bringing in more than the outstanding debt at a
Christie’s art auction. A Warhol sold for $464,000 while a Ruschka
sold for $1.25 million.
Acker did not fare so well. In a Confession of Judgment (a legally binding acknowledgment of debt) dated Nov. 23, 2008,
Kurniawan agreed that he owed Acker $10.4 million. That sum
included outstanding loans, unpaid wine invoices and attorney’s
Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
Burgundy vintner Laurent Ponsot
counterfeit WINES
home in Morey-St-Denis. Burgundian cellars commonly hold library
inventories of bottled wine, which
remain unlabeled until sold. Ponsot
suspects that a forgotten cache of
dusty bottles may have been retrieved from one of his neighbor’s
cellars and labeled as his wine by
counterfeiters. He is currently investigating the whereabouts of a large batch of négociant wines that
disappeared.
Ponsot tried to enlist the French government’s anti-fraud agency,
which defends trademarks such as Chanel, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton, in tracking the counterfeiters, but to no avail. “They’re more
interested in catching fraud in the wineries than in tracing old
bottles,” he says.
He’s also tried to interest his fellow producers in forming a
panel that could render expert opinions on questionable wines.
That effort stalled because “Burgundians are very cautious about
sharing confidential information,” he says. For now, Ponsot has
moved to head off future fakes. Starting with the 2008 vintage,
his signature will be molded into his bottles. Neck capsules will
be tamper-proof. A third level of security will be invisible to the
naked eye.
As for the discredited Ponsot wines, they remain in limbo, stored
away in Acker’s New Jersey warehouse. Ponsot had hoped to be
filing suit or seeking criminal charges against the counterfeiters by
now. That hasn’t happened, but, with a smile, he compares himself
to Don Quixote, “who never gave up.”
But then he turns serious. “I’d like to tell you what I’m truly
feeling. I want so much to respect the authenticity of each appellation and vintage. I want to be faithful to what nature gave.
When I see these old bottles supposedly made by my grandfather,
who worked so fanatically, it’s not only me, but him, that’s being
disrespected.”
“Every time I open a great old bottle now, I find
myself wondering. This has besmirched the thrill
you get from beautiful old wine.”
The Crusade Continues
T
he thirst for collectible wine often mirrors financial
markets. As the economy showed the first faint signs of
recovery this fall, wine auctions came back to life. Kapon
presided over a sale on Sept. 9 in New York that was 100
percent sold and raised $2.52 million, exceeding the presale estimate. A case of Screaming Eagle 2001 went for
$24,200. Christie’s New York division held its own successful
sale a few days later, raising $2.65 million. Kapon then flew to
Hong Kong, New York’s new challenger in the auction market,
and sold $6.4 million worth of wine at a Sept. 19 auction at the
Shangri-La Hotel.
As the good times revive, many in the wine market worry
that the focus on counterfeits will scare away bidders. Some argue that the problem is being exaggerated. “Twenty years ago
nobody was screaming fakes,” says David Elswood, who heads
Christie’s London-based wine department. “But now we have
put this idea that there are fakes out there and I am sure that
in the course of that a lot of genuine bottles have been called
into question.”
62
Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
—Robert Rosania
Many longtime collectors say that counterfeits are simply a risk
of collecting—that any wine lover with an impressive cellar has
some fakes hidden among the gems. “If you own one bottle,
chances are it’s not fake,” says Rosania. “If you have 50,000 bottles in your cellar, you have 50,000 chances that you have a fake.”
These collectors argue that the only solution is to be careful, do
your homework and ask for a refund from the auction house if
you have any doubts.
Kapon says the Ponsot episode “has made us more attentive
and careful with older wines, and no longer just relying on tasting them. We’re now consulting with third-party experts on megacellars. Based on the business we’ve done in the last year, our clients are confident. They realize that what happened was the
exception, not the rule.”
Zacharia insists that fakes are a small portion of the market and
that Zachys is constantly working on improving its inspections of
consignments. He also says the impressive sales this fall show that
people do not believe the market is littered with counterfeits.
Each new lawsuit raises questions about whether enough is being done to keep counterfeits out of the market. Some think the
attention is good. “Koch is helping—he has everyone awake,” says
collector Black. “The auction houses have gotten better. Some are
weak on due diligence but give 100 percent money back
guarantees.”
Asked whether auction houses need to improve their inspection
process, Rosania says, “There is no perfect litmus test. It’s not realistic. Either we’re going to recognize that old wine has inherent
risk or we’re only going to drink young wine.”
But he also admits, “Every time I open a great old bottle now, I
find myself wondering. This has besmirched the thrill you get from
beautiful old wine.”
None of Koch’s array of suits has come to trial yet, but Koch
has not tired of the chase. “The wheels of justice move at a snail’s
pace,” he says. “I would have liked, through discovery, to have
found the source of these [fakes in my cellar] by now.” But he
warns that he won’t give up. “I sued my [twin] brother David for
20 years. And as a sailor, I lost more races than I won. But what’s
important is that I won the last one.” Koch skippered the America3, the boat that won the America’s Cup in 1992. He financed
the $65 million expedition himself.
He sees his suits against the auction houses as just a step. He
wants to find out who made these fakes. And he wants the market
changed. To Koch, it’s all about trust.
“I cannot stand these experts who stand up and say, ‘This is
authentic.’ They are selling something over and over again that
is fake. They’re abusing trust. There is a conspiracy of silence in
this industry,” says Koch. “And I mean to solve the problem.”
Peter Hellman is a freelance writer based in New York.
counterfeit WINES
Q&A with
An Expert on Old Wines Talks About Counterfeits
S
erena Sutcliffe leads Sotheby’s International Wine Department, having joined
the auction house in 1991. Sotheby’s conducts wine auctions around the world; its
annual sales totaled $44 million last year.
Sutcliffe, 65, is a Master of Wine and is considered one of the world’s leading experts on old
wines. She and her husband, retired wine merchant and writer David Peppercorn, have
been tasting and writing about the great
wines of the world for decades. James Suckling met with the outspoken auctioneer in
September in Sotheby’s offices.
that we are seeing an increasing amount of
fake provenance. We are watching that closely
because it could affect us.
JS: Before the 1980s, you really didn’t have to
worry about this.
SS: Not really. You started to worry in the
1980s, but it was minute. The explosion started
in the second half of the 1990s and this century.
It was an absolute explosion. This is a really big
business.
James Suckling: Are you seeing more fakes
now than in the past?
Serena Sutcliffe: Yes. [The numbers are] very,
very high. This is particularly true in the States.
JS: And the Far East?
SS: Yes. Particularly in wine collections put
together over the last decade.
JS: Why those markets?
SS: It’s simple. It’s where there is money.
JS: What wines do counterfeiters normally
focus on?
SS: It is a price thing. When a wine reaches a
certain price level, it becomes a candidate. It’s
all trophies. It’s the classics. And it’s the classic
and trophy years.
JS: Is it old wines such as 1947 Cheval, or 1961
Pétrus, or is it more recent, such as 1982, 1989
and 1990?
SS: It is relative to the prices they will get. They
are going to get more money for the older
wines. They are going to be looking at 1947
Cheval-Blanc or 1945 Mouton-Rothschild more
than something like 1982 Pichon-Lalande. It’s
just logic.
sotheby’s
JS: Are you worried about young wines now,
such as 2000 or 2005 Bordeaux?
SS: We are not finding [fakes] when we are being offered [those vintages]. I know, particularly in Asia, that they are out there.
JS: Do you think that wine producers are doing
more to combat fakes?
SS: They all are, and it will help in the future.
But it is not going to help the current situation.
Wine producers are putting things in the glass
and using new capsules. This will help later on if
there is a question. The fact is that you will
never stop it entirely.
JS: Has the FBI been in contact with Sotheby’s
over fake wines?
SS: Yes. But we are not allowed to talk about
anything. Obviously, they have bigger preoccupations. But it’s quite interesting that it is at
such a scale that it can be linked to other things
in which they are very interested.
JS: How does it work when someone comes in
with wines for offer, or a cellar?
SS: We go and see it. And, of course, we ask
how and when it was acquired. We want to
know that absolutely chapter and verse. So we
look at it all physically and make up our mind.
The vast majority of wines that we sell, particularly in Europe, are not [handled like] this. But
as soon as you are into the trophy wines, we do
inspections and make up our mind. We ask
questions.
JS: Have your procedures for acquiring wines
changed with the increase of fakes in the
market?
SS: No. We have always had that kind of
methodology.
JS: Are most of the fakes easy to spot today?
SS: Not at all. They are very cleverly done. But
we know what we are looking for. And we can
usually tell from the provenance of the wines.
But these are not Mickey Mouse things.
JS: So it’s not just a question anymore of
changing labels and corks? Or is it actually
people making wine? Is it people blending
things, or using a California wine to produce a
“Bordeaux”?
SS: There is so much that has been created. It is
very professional. What is very worrying now is
JS: People probably expect you to be able to
say a wine is fake right away. But it’s not that
easy, is it?
SS: The vast majority of people couldn’t tell
you. This was all started by one European who
saw how he could fool a whole swath of socalled experts. And that made everybody else
who was interested in such criminal activity realize that they could fool everybody all the
time. That opened the door.
JS: Do you find the quantities of old trophy
wines in the market from before the 1950s a
little hard to believe?
SS: I distinctly remember in the 1960s, how
lovely it was to have these wines if you were
lucky enough to drink them. But [the supplies]
were drying up then.
JS: Already?
SS: Yes. It’s normal. This isn’t a picture. It is
something that is consumed. I remember in the
1960s drinking wines from the 1930s, and I
thought they were old then. And now people
are regularly drinking wines that are 50, 60 and
70 years old. [Laughs.] It’s quite interesting.
JS: Aren’t you worried that if the situation with
fake wines becomes more public it might impact the fine-wine business?
SS: I don’t care if a lot of these things are rumbled. I would be thrilled if they were, because
we are only going to sell things where we can
stand by the provenance. I would love to see
something done.
JS: Some wine merchants say that bringing
this to light will ruin the fine-wine business.
SS: Yes. This is what has contributed to the protectionism that has surrounded all this, because
some know that they have been selling this sort
of stuff without really checking. They are scared
silly. They didn’t want to know. They are not really
involved in these groups [of counterfeiters]. But
they just didn’t want to know.
DEC. 15, 2009 • Wine Spectator
65
counterfeit WINES
The fight against
Concerned Producers Are Taking Steps to Protect Their Brands From Counterfeiters
By Augustus Weed
A
n auctioneer for 20 years, Ursula Hermacinski has seen some expertly crafted counterfeit wines. She’s observed 1982 Pétrus labels
stuck on bottles of the less expensive 1984 Pétrus.
But now, as estate director at Napa Valley’s Screaming Eagle, she
faces a different challenge—protecting the brand’s image from counterfeiters. Wineries have little control over their brands in the marketplace.
Producers lose sales to counterfeits and worse, the fakes are often poorquality wine, which can harm the wine’s reputation. “The largest issue is
any kind of brand erosion,” says Hermacinski.
“After you reach a certain price, [counterfeiting] is an issue for any
winery,” says Don Weaver, director of Napa’s Harlan Estate. Vintners
are taking measures to protect current vintages, incorporating the latest anti-counterfeiting technology into their labels and bottles, hoping
to stay one step ahead of the criminals.
At the same time, historic wineries, especially prestige estates, must
contend with counterfeits of their older vintages, even though many of
those wines were produced when labeling and record-keeping were
haphazard. The goal is to make sure consumers have the confidence to
buy a legendary (and expensive) wine.
3-D
labeling
dna
Marking
Bottle Etching
The Latest in Security
Guaranteeing Older Vintages
While these anti-fraud systems are good for new releases, they cannot
protect older bottles. Château Mouton-Rothschild has been engraving
information on the bottom of its newer bottles. But to safeguard older
vintages, they monitor what’s on the market. “We are doing our best
along with the main auction houses to identify and check any suspicious bottles,” says CEO and managing director Hervé Berland.
Burgundy’s Domaine Faiveley also tracks its wines at auction. “We
are on the mailing lists of all the major wine auctions; we always take a
look at what is being sold,” says winery president Erwan Faiveley. Last
66
Wine Spectator • DEC. 15, 2009
year he found two “dodgy” bottles of his wines up for sale. Keeping
track of the wines in other secondary markets, such as collectible-wine
retailers, however, is harder.
Scientific MethodS
Producers are not the only ones investigating fraud. Scientists are
getting involved as well, but the technology is expensive and not
yet widely available.
Researchers at France’s National Center for Scientific Research in Bordeaux are using a particle accelerator to determine the age of bottles.
Glass-production techniques have changed over time, so a bottle’s glass
contains telltale composition clues. But the method won’t protect against
counterfeit wine poured into an authentic, “recycled” bottle.
Another method, developed by French scientists at the University of
Bourgogne, sniffs out fakes using a mass spectrometer. Compounds in
a vaporized wine sample are analyzed to determine the age of the barrel it was in. Factors such as climate change and lichen growth impart
certain chemicals into the forests where barrels are sourced. Those
chemicals are transferred to the wine. Scientists check to see if the barrels are younger than the stated age of the wine.
One company is turning to DNA. Applied DNA Sciences has developed a process called BioMaterial Genotyping, which uses the DNA of
natural materials in a wine like a fingerprint to compare a suspect bottle with an authentic bottle of certified provenance. Since two bottles
of the same wine should technically have identical DNA patterns, the
process can determine if the two samples match. But these tests require a database of authentic collectible wines and that the suspect
bottle be opened.
The question remains to what degree these methods will deter criminals. If nothing else, growing awareness in the wine industry should
make it harder for counterfeiters to pass off fakes.
Kevin Twomey
Many wineries are now utilizing anti-fraud technology for their new
bottles. Companies such as iProof, eProvenance, Kodak, Prooftag,
CertiLogo and Applied DNA Sciences have developed security systems for the wine industry. These firms use invisible inks, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags or encrypted codes to deter fraud
and track wines.
Harlan’s labels are produced by a security printing company that also
makes currency and stamps. The security features are proprietary, and
Weaver will not discuss them. Another California winemaker, Russell
Bevan, recently implemented the iProof system on his Bevan Cellars
brand. The system puts codes on labels, or hidden RFID tags. Consumers
can retrieve information about a bottle online or scan the RFID tag using
a cell phone (the technology is on the verge of becoming available in the
United States).
Some producers are less certain of these devices. Jean-Charles Cazes,
CEO of Château Lynch-Bages and other properties, has not seen a company that he is comfortable using. “For us, right now, there is no technology which we are sure would be viable on the market in 20 or 40 years,”
he says. That’s the biggest challenge—whatever the technology, it must
stay ahead of counterfeiters and be easily accessed by consumers and
auction houses for years to come. For now, Lynch-Bages is using its own
tracking system—etching codes on bottles that link to a database.