My first post on this forum and I’m looking for some advice.
I’m importer/distributor and last week I’ve received an request from a person who offered some (I feel) dodgy/fraudulent bottles of Lafleur / Leroy / Leflaive. (see attachments). He claims that he inherited these bottles from his family and is looking for some quick cash. I’m asking for some advice how to deal with this and alarm other buyers to beware of this person. I spoke with some actioneers for some info but they won’t help me.
If these bottles were the only bottles you were offered, then the story is extremely suspicious. The photos do not fit the story that you were told. The “I just inherited these bottles and want to turn them into quick cash” story is the single most common story told when people are trying to sell counterfeit rare wines to wine merchants. That type of story is also told when people are trying to sell stolen wines. If someone inherited wine, there is absolutely no way that these eight bottles are the only bottles they inherited. And someone who inherited the wine wouldn’t know that these particular eight would be the high value wines to sell. But there are other things that don’t add up as well. Unless you provided extremely explicit instructions about the type of photos of you wanted and what to shoot the pictures of, the large high resolution photographs also seem completely inconsistent with someone who claims to have just inherited the wines. The bottle numbers on the Leflaive Montrachet and the Leroy back labels have been intentionally covered up by the person who sent you the photographs. Someone who merely inherited the bottles would not do that. This is commonly done in two circumstances: (i) stolen wine, if the person selling it is smart enough to know the bottle numbers mean the wine can be traced; and (ii) the person who sent the pictures is able to purchase wines directly from Leflaive and Leroy, who would take a dim view of the person reselling the bottles. (This of course presumes the bottles are authentic.)
As you likely know, it is essentially impossible to authenticate wines from photographs – even with very high resolution photographs. On the other hand, sometimes you can see things which are either suspect or clearly indicate counterfeit wines.
All of the Chateau Lafleur wines are suspect. The capsules are all too long for the 1979 to 1985 vintages. The capsules for all of those vintages should end approximately one-third inch above the end of the cork. These are all very long capsules which are typical of the vintages from 2002 to date. The capsules were somewhat longer by the mid-1990s, but still didn’t reach the bottom of the corks. By 2002 the capsules reached to the end of the corks. The labels for the two bottles of 1979 Lafleur do not match and the paper does not appear to match. While I have seen examples of both labels on the internet, I do not have enough personal knowledge to know whether there might have been a subsequent release of 1979 with a different label. The 1982 and 1985 Lafleur labels appear on the surface to conform to the Lafleur labels, but these labels are very easy to duplicate.
Leflaive used bright yellow wax capsules on the Montrachet from those vintages. While I have seen bumps on the wax on some Montrachet bottles, since they are done by hand, the wax on two of the three bottles seems extra-sloppy and mounded, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. The cork stamp on the top of the bottles shown in the photos DOES NOT match the cork stamp that Domaine Leflaive currently shows on their website – close, but not the same. The back labels on the Leflaive wines, at least since 2010, show the vineyards they own in a light green color, not brown. However, I don’t have any Leflaive wines from those vintages in my home cellar at the moment. Under the circumstances these bottles are suspect.
The 1998 Leroy Chambertin has no obvious faults. That vintage did have red metal capsules and the tax stamp on top is for Leroy. The crown above the Leroy mark appears from the photo that it may be embossed into the paper, which is what is supposed to be. But how did the person know to cover up the bottle number on the back label?
I know absolutely nothing about counterfeit wine, but my first impression of this picture was that an 8-year old dipped those bottles in wax during candle making class.
The back labels of the Leflaives on the bottles I have, 93,00,04,06,07 show the vineyards in a gold metallic color. The pic might not have translated the true color?
Well, to be fair the Montrachet being real bottles would make sense even if they aren’t legit. Source empty bottles, fill with something else, re-cork them and add the wax and stamp.
Hi Don, thank you for your thorough response, very much appreciated!
Patrick is right! When you zoom in it’s seems Pugelles i.s.o. Pucelles.
Today I shared a post on Instagram / Facebook and it seems that this particular person has offered the bottles to almost every serious wineshop / auction house in Holland.
It just made me wonder today if others received these offered bottles, why doesn’t anyone else share this to create some awareness to avoid these frauds. It just seems an ungoing story where the people who buy this stuff gets duped and the actual frauds keeps on going.
Anyway it annoys me just like many others here.
Thank you for all your input, have a great weekend and drink some real wine!
Incredibly sloppy error. I almost wonder how that comes about. I would have assumed the forger isn’t recreating the map stroke by stroke but copying from a real label. Interesting.
On another note: Hi Jan-Willem! I hope you are doing well!
Thanks. I agree that it works best when everyone communicates about this stuff and tries to stop it. You can post the name of the person who offered you the bottles here if you want to communicate a warning to people.
You might want to consider letting your professional colleagues in Holland know. A few years ago something similar came up in Belgium and I encouraged the Belgian merchant who contacted me to exchange information with other merchants there about some counterfeit Dugat-Py and Roumier wines that were being offered. He did that. Working together they very quickly managed to track down the people responsible for offering the counterfeits. They were arrested in Marseilles, convicted and sent to prison.
I doubt it. Given the enormous variety in labels, paper, printing, capsules, bottles, importer strips, etc., unless you’re a professional authentication or someone like Don, there are always going to be opportunities to make mistakes.
And, in cases like this, it’s vital for people in the trade to know that others are suspicious about particular lots.
Finally, it’s important to alert/remind people in the trade and wine consumers how much fake stuff is out there.
