Counterfeit Wine

Along with all the glamour and exceptional wines that come along with working for a 325 year old wine merchant, there is an opposite, darker side. Fake and counterfeit wines.

Hosted by Philip and Seb from Berry Bros. & Rudd, the course covered off a bit of a history (we’ve been at it since ancient greek and roman times). A look at some key, defining cases in history (Hardy Rodenstock and Rudy Kurniawan), how Berry Bros. & Rudd tackle this in the industry and a chance to get all CSI on some fake bottles and learn the tricks of the trade!

Looking for subtle clues in labels

Firstly, this was a really fascinating workshop and a real eye opener into the counterfeit wine trade. It wasn’t something I had really considered before this this session.

One of the most interesting cases, was the one around Rudy Kurniawan. After making his way into an elite group of “Angry Men” in Los Angeles by offering fantastic dinner and wine experiences, he managed to fool people into buying fake wine. He became a key player at auctions, quickly buying and selling some of the greatest wines available such as Domain de la Romanee-Conti.

How to spot a fake

In the early 2000’s one of his auctions landed him over $24m. One of the key turning points in this case was the involvement of Domaine Ponsot - a wine producer in Burgundy, France. When vintages of this wine from 1945 started to appear, alarm bells rangs as Laurent Ponsot (Domaine Ponsot) highlighted that his family only started making this wine in 1982. He then spent around 5 years investigating.

The investigation took up until 2014, when Rudy was sentenced to 10 years in a California prison - the first person to be convicted of wine fraud.

A great documentary to watch on this is Sour Grapes that follows the story of Rudy and the efforts of Laurent Ponsot to protect his product and brand.

Looking for clues from producers

What does this mean for Wine Merchants?

Security measures are important. Whilst having great relationships with producers helps to eliminate fake wines in the systems, it is important to have other methods in place to check the authenticity of the products.

We only touched upon some of these methods within the session, but it is clear there is a lot to learn with different tools and knowledge available to help the identification of the fake wines.

It’s great that Berry, Bros. & Rudd have invested in their staff and resource to be a leading wine merchant and keeping on top of wine fraud.