ANOTHER URGENT WARNING ABOUT BAGHERA WINE AUCTIONS IN GENEVA

WINE TALK
21

Thanks for the wonderful post, especially the info about Yquem. I would love to hear more about what you generally look for to determine authenticity in person, though I don’t buy the really high end stuff (100 year-old Yquem will never be in my price range). I would love to know more about whether more recent stuff (ie. late 80s Yquem) has also been counterfeited or whether it is the truly >$1000 bottles.

22

Rule no 1: never buy at auction. The end.

Thanks Don.

Dan

23

Great work, Don. Thank you again

24

Don–Very interesting post; thanks for all the details. A couple of questions:

  1. Is the secondary market still seeing a lot of former Rudy K. bottles show up?

  2. I’ve not heard of this auction house before, and you mentioned this is only their second auction. Given the volume of fake/questionable wines that must be out there, and given the greater scrutiny that better auction houses are giving to old/rare bottles, are newer auction houses springing up as a vehicle for offloading fake/questionable bottles?

Bruce

25

some are bought by retailers who in turn resell.

26

And restaurants buy at auctions, and resells, sometimes even without food.
Many weird bottles lying dormant all over the world, waiting to enter the circulation again, or to get drunk by the true victim, the last buyer, He/She that drinks, in stead of reselling.

-Soren.

27

Wanted to go to the auction tomorrow. I am tempted to print out your post a few hundred times and hand it out to visitors of the auction ( until I get arrested - that would be berserking at its best [training.gif] )

Cheers
Christian

28

Awesome effort! Thanks touch for sharing this information.

29

Don’t mess with Don!! Great work to expose these fraudulent bottles.

30

I honestly thought as I started to read it that they had sourced all their wine from a Swedish Nobleman’s Cellar…

31

If you do that, please let us know how it went. (Is there internet access in a Swiss jail??) [snort.gif] :wink:

32

Bruce-
The sad reality is that all of the Rudy K, and Hardy Rodenstock, and Italian made DRC, and counterfeit large format 1945 DRC RC, and all the rest of the fine and rare counterfeit wine- is still on the market and being continually circulated.

In fact, these counterfeits have become a cottage industry, and a source of double revenue for the sellers - THE VAST MAJORITY OF WHOM ARE BROKERS AND RETAILERS.

What all the unscrupulous vendors do is agree to compensate for bad purchases at purchase price (value of the bottle years ago sometimes) and take the bottles back. Then they resell them at today’s full market value. Despite having reports about the details of why the bottles are counterfeit…

Have you ever heard that Acker “destroyed” the Rudy counterfeit bottles that were returned? Has any vendor ever made a public spectacle of standing up for the good of the consumer, or the market and destroying counterfeits? NO, you haven’t. Because they don’t.

All these counterfeits are out there, and being sold and resold. And again- it is mostly by brokers, and shady retailers! At least people are monitoring auctions. There is no way to monitor the grey market.

MD

33

I would also call into question the lots of 1967 d’Yquem (lots 580 and 581), the color is much lighter than any bottles I have seen recently. The 1976 d’Yquem (lots 582, 583, 584 and 585 although only one lot is pictured) also looks impossibly light.

34

Is Baghera French for Spectrum?

35

I would hope for that, but I think the failure of government bodies and law enforcement to hold these people liable sends the message that it really doesn’t matter. I hope there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that will show how wrong I am about this, but so far, I haven’t seen it.

Of course, the work Don continues to do with this is still important and impressive. Don, I hope you continue, and I hope we eventually see some criminal charges filed against people in the auction business. Has that happened at all so far, with the huge amount of evidence that some of them have knowingly sold fraudulent wines? I understand how difficult that would be to prove (or maybe I don’t), but just from what I’ve seen on this board, it seems unquestionable in some cases.

36

37

Thank You, Don.

Wherever there’s money…


The amount of effort it takes to create imposters coupled with the effort it takes to ferret them out seems like such a waste.

OK some of these imposters were not too hard for the knowledgeable to ID, but there have to be other items outside this auction that owners know or strongly suspect are fraudulent, and the investor/owners just want their money back at the expense of the next guy.

One step away from Mexican narcotics traffickers…

38

Auction of world’s most expensive wine thrown into chaos after claims they’re fake

39

:wink:

40

I think it means #8 Dragon.