Jarett Sitter
As the dust settles on the largest court case involving counterfeit wine in history fine wine buyers around the world are reeling. Rudy Kurniawan turned the wine collecting world upside down after he was arrested by FBI agents and later convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for counterfeiting millions of dollars in rare wines. His elaborate scam involved buying old and rare wines drinking them and then refilling them with inferior wines before reselling them to an unsuspecting auction market. Kurniawan supported a lavish lifestyle for over a decade defrauding some of America’s wealthiest wine collectors and today many questions remain about how he managed to fool so many people for so long.
Wine fraud is as old as wine itself. Since the first quality wines were made in Roman times there were those who misrepresented lesser wines for those of higher repute. But with top wines now fetching tens of thousands per bottle the temptation has never been greater.
It’s rumoured that there are more bottles of 1947 Chateau Pertus for sale in China today than the Chateau ever produced. In fact an empty bottle of Pertus or Lafite will sell for upwards of $50 in China — that beats the bottle depot. The Chinese market was the natural place for wine fraud to take hold as the culture of fake goods is well established and the buyers are often new to wine and unfamiliar with the authentic products. But Kurniawan didn’t pull off his scam in China; he did it in United States right under the noses of people who should have known better.
Protecting yourself from wine fraud is not as easy as you might think. Authenticating old bottles is difficult — without actually opening the bottle in question it is often impossible to be 100 per cent certain — which means that any wine that isn’t bought straight from the winery itself has the potential to be a fake.
But the biggest risk when buying wine at auction or secondhand (assuming it is authentic) is poor storage. Wine is a sensitive living thing that reacts to its environment and the older it gets the more sensitive it becomes. Things like temperature fluctuations light and vibrations can cause a wine to prematurely deteriorate. Add to that the fact that after 25 years about five to 10 per cent of corks fail to effectively keep oxygen out of the bottle and it’s evident that buying old wine is risky business.
While the average person is not likely to run into a fake bottle of 1947 Mouton Rothschild you may have been a victim of another kind of wine fraud. For the second time in a few months Tuscan wine officials have uncovered a scam to label a poor quality Italian table wine as a prestigious Brunello di Montalcino. More scams like this are popping up all the time leaving one to wonder how many are going uncaught. As the wine business gets more competitive unscrupulous producers are tempted to push the boundaries — we are already seeing flavouring of wines with non-permitted additives unauthorized sweetening of wines and the addition of colouring agents.
So what is a wine drinker to do? Generally it’s enough for the average buyer to find a reputable store where they can ask questions like “is this wine made naturally or do they sweeten or colour it?” In Calgary we have fewer problems than more high-profile cities and the lack of an auction market makes the city less of a target but that doesn’t mean fake wines don’t exist. When you are buying wines especially expensive ones ask where they came from and how they were stored. If the cases are not sealed and direct from the winery you need to exercise caution.
The wine world is working hard to defend itself and protect its integrity using high-tech coded seals on their bottles microchips to authenticate and track wine and wine “police” to make sure producers are not stretching the boundaries of where their grapes can be grown. Many wine-producing countries are also considering laws concerning additives and more transparent labelling.
While it’s easy to say “who cares if a few rich guys get ripped off” the truth is if we lose our faith that the wines we buy are authentic wine lovers at every level will suffer.
