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Finally got around to viewing Sour Grapes which is the doco movie of the Rudy Kurniawan wine fraud saga. A must view and brilliant insight to the madness of Burgundy fever. Anyone else seen it?

Regards

Yes I thought it was great as well. I thought it prevented quite a balanced view. it makes you wonder how much of Rudy's stuff may be floating around in auctions or hidden away in cellars..

Agree, but my unanswered query is "who else must have been 'cooking' with him? Impossible to do it all alone.

Yes, a good watch

Rocky wrote:Agree, but my unanswered query is "who else must have been 'cooking' with him? Impossible to do it all alone.

Yes, clearly a syndicate at play... he had the charm to front it. I'm always told by my local friends not to buy alcohol duty free at some airports (Jakarta, Bangkok, Shanghai etc) and I have no doubt that there's a lot of counterfeit booze out in the market.

Rocky wrote:Agree, but my unanswered query is "who else must have been 'cooking' with him? Impossible to do it all alone.

Plenty of discussions on the enormous Wine Berserkers thread.

Some of the enablers are very much known, chief of those being John Acker of Acker, Merrall & Condit. Not only did he auction much of Rudy's fakes, he was part of his tasting group, and also was financially tied to Rudy by way of loans Rudy had taken with the firm. Many would like to see him face the courts, but at this point that seems unlikely.

Other auction houses also enabled this, some more actively than others. One other enabler is currently subject to another thread on the forum, Marc Lazar. He isn't being prosecuted for his involvement with Rudy, though there is a distinct impression that the feds are treating an infraction of licensing rules as a means to catch someone involved with Rudy (the analogy has been offered to Al Capone being caught for tax evasion).

The label printing was done in Asia, though no prosecutions have been attempted AFAIK.

Some of the other '12 angry men' have significant doubts cast over them, and Rob Rosania seems more entwined than most. The view is not all of this tasting group were aware / involved in passing fraudulent goods, some were just 'ballers' who enjoyed the conspicuous consumption of this tasting group, and it does look like a good number of them were duped.

Finally the one person whose role has been alluded to, but no name ever put forward, is the Burgundy expert it is alleged that would have been necessary to get such accurate forgeries. Rudy was known to be an avid collector of bottles - always taking the empties home as trophies (or so it seemed). This must have made forging those specific wines much easier - an expert surely is superfluous if you've got a genuine bottle to copy and even tasted the genuine wine yourself. However I doubt he had access to the really rare old vintages, despite being an enthusiastic buyer in the early days. This is where many believe a Burgundy expert was involved.

That thread is worth a read if you have a couple of days spare (I'm not joking either).

regards
Ian

I agree that some of the angry men would have been oblivious. Some of their legendary drinking nights in the private rooms of NY's best restaurants were focussed on really rare Champagnes, rather than Burgundies, and I haven't seen any evidence to date to suggest they had been faked. Indeed, some of that crowd continues to drink incredibly rare Champers and participate in different forums.

I think it's noteworthy that Gil Lempert-Schwarz used to drink with that crowd, and he's been accused of dodgy stuff as well. Berserkers has tons of info on that too.

Yes indeed Mike, how could I miss GLS off my summary. Definitely carrying the baton for dubious auction lots.

A good watch. Interesting how it was noted some of the likely buyers are not getting their bottles checked preferring to pretend they are all legit. There is some merit in this. Just looking at an old great bottles is worth a lot...... but not as much as they paid. I am guilty of keeping empty bottles of very special wines drunk on special occasions.

Carl

Watched it on the weekend. Thoroughly enjoyed it. A well made documentary that I think would even appeal to those that aren't into wine. Having all that footage of Rudy himself was great.

http://www.colgincellars.com/articles?billionaire_winos

sorry if this is inappropriate Gavin.
but this article in hindsight makes for incredible reading

I watched it on Netflix last night, great story!

shauno wrote:I watched it on Netflix last night, great story!

read Billionaires Vinegar
I read the entire book on a flight
well worth it

Michael, not sure if its the adulation of the jouro or the puerile antics of the billionaire that I found offensive. Clearly I will never ever ever be in that sort of company will those types of wines (happy with the mixed dozen of Bolly 750 Ml RDs that I have purchased over the years) but the whole OTT thing left me cold. Still there maybe a parallel in paying far too much for a NYC penthouse and a fake case of Pinot.
Each to their own and good luck to them I guess.

Cheers
Craig

michel wrote:http://www.colgincellars.com/articles?billionaire_winos

sorry if this is inappropriate Gavin.
but this article in hindsight makes for incredible reading

Thanks for the link, very interesting!

michel wrote:http://www.colgincellars.com/articles?billionaire_winos

sorry if this is inappropriate Gavin.
but this article in hindsight makes for incredible reading

Quite an entertaining read.
Some really funny one liners...

"It's his party, and his magnum is bigger than anyone else's magnum"

For me this was more of a pissing contest for the Elite.
Half their luck!!

I used to get Kapon's emails and they could make a sailor blush at times. Still, the wines they drank... at least the legit ones.... were incredible.

If my memory serves me correctly, on eBob, Rosania slammed Koch for starting legal action against his mates. Sufficed to say, he doesn't have as much to say anymore! Still, he probably has the greatest Champagne collection in history.