Jeff really needs an editor.
Making this type of crime easier is the creation of the new Coravin system, allowing consumers to remove some, or all of the wine from a bottle and refill the bottle with cheap wine, using a syringe. Of course there will be a minor puncture in the cork and capsule, but if the buyer does not about the puncture, it will be very easy to pass these bottles off as the original bottle. These types of fakes are much easier to pass off as the original than bottles produced using for example, photo copied labels.
Who or what is the small French brand, Rafi, and why would they counterfeit it?
This part really feels like pure conjecture on Jeff’s part. First of all, is it even possible to use a syringe to put wine into a Coravinned bottle that has been emptied and pumped full of argon, all without creating some kind of pressure that pushes the cork out (maybe one of the board’s scientists can enlighten us)? Second of all, if it’s a counterfeiting ring of sufficient size and sophistication, isn’t it vastly easier for them to just re-cork and re-capsule?