Haha , nice article… from a few years ago .
Jay, you are better at identifying blind wines than people. All three of us were at the same Heritage blind wine tasting contest recently. 
That was the one time we were in the same room, but I never talked to him.
WHAT ? No champagne gif on my smart phone.
Jay–I’ve been lucky enough to the beneficiary of invites to some wonderful tastings/dinners over the years, especially early on where the people who invited me had much more knowledge, tasting experience, and deeper cellars than I did. I’m always appreciative of those invites.
There has often been, though, a concern (or at least a question) about the sheer quantity of bottles opened at some of the gala wine events. I think that’s a legitimate point of discussion, regardless of whether any of the guests has any nefarious plans. Unless someone is superhuman (or not human at all), there’s just no way that your tasting abilities can remain laser-sharp after drinking through 12-20+ bottles of wine.
Bruce
I do not disagree, although I think my limit is somewhere between fifteen and eighteen. My only point is that there are frequent references in a disparaging tone to some of those dinners, not just because there was a lot of wine, but also because people were hobnobbing with other people who are now known to be counterfeiters. I’m not big on guilt by association.
Indeed. RMP pulled a bit of a nasty move on Eric Levine and Scott Manlin by claiming that they “introduced him” to Rudy, or some such. I remember it really pissed off Eric, as it was demonstrably untrue.
In case anyone missed this episode, here`s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWoUBqwW0dw
I love that this thread is still trucking along, when it first popped up and unfolded it was absolutely amazing. I need to watch that American Greed.
It is somewhat strange to learn that people won´t believe they did drink fake wine even when the evidence is overwhelming. Examples: I remember a piece from Parker´s hedonist gazette where a group of people including Parker opened two!!! Magnums of 47 Lafleur. The Robin sisters where sure only 5 where produced. I confronted Parker with this fact and his answers was that I am being to skeptical. Parker also think the Jeroboam of 1929 Petrus Rodenstock served him was genuine. The Moueix family does´t believe this wine was ever produced. At least not from the Chateau. Parker still believes this wine was genuine as well.
It is clear – if you have to loose a reputation as a fine taster you will have hard times to admit that someone poured you doctored wine and you were´t able to realize it. Did Meadows rave about old Burgundies coming from Rudy? Were at least some of them fakes? Most probably. So if even critics are not able to detect fake wines, who is? This is again the proof that the human nose and palate are too weak as reliable instruments. And the character of most humans is too weak for a honest clarification too.
As long as people believe a 60 year old Bordeaux or Burgundy is an out of body experience the forgers have an easy play. And those who think lot´s of of old and real big format bottles of the most sought after wines are still available are naive. The best way to get real old wines these days is if you are invited by the Chateau or Domaine for dinner.
And btw. 1982 and 1990 Bordeaux are old enough. 1985 and 1990 Burgundy as well. The risk that you get an less than optimal bottle of Bordeaux and Burgundy rises the older the wines are. It may be that still some fine bottles of 1928, 1929, 1945, 1947 and 1961 Bordeaux do exist. But the chance to find a bottle of these ancient vintages still fresh and without any sign of decline is not that big. Better buy 2 bottles of 1982 Latour instead of one 1961. The quality is similar (I tasted both) but the risk with the 1982 is smaller.
If people want to believe, they believe. However silly it seems to unbelievers. All experience, from all fields of life, attests to this fact. Belief systems are too big a part of the ego to let facts intrude.
Ray,
my mother and her family worked in the vineyards around Libourne (Pomerol/Saint Emilion) in the year 1947 and after. She told me that these had been very hard times. Many people were very hungry, there had been a lack of almost anything that time. Little food, not enough tools, sometimes no barrels and actually often not enough bottles. It was a very poor time and Pomerol was an almost unknown farmland at that time. It is very likely that the story of Madame Robin was very, very true. And to make it clear: The source of my own mother and the Robin sisters is a lot more reliable to me than the ones of auction houses and collectors who certainly have zero interest to learn that their bottles in the cellar were anything but no real Magnum of 47 Lafleur. Coming from a vintage that was known for producing wines that were delicious from the start. Do you think the people 40 or 50 years ago were not thirsty? And why collecting these wines that had very little image at that time?
The evidence that most if not all of these still existing Magnums 1947 Lafleur are fakes is almost overwhelming. As hard as it may be for the auction houses and the owner of those bottles.
Jurgen:
The thing that I find most amazing is that many of the victims of Hardy Rodenstock and Rudy Kurniawan chose to believe in things that were almost objectively impossible – like bottles of first growth Bordeaux from the 1700s with amazing fill levels and inscribed with the initials of Thomas Jefferson found more than 200 years after Jefferson’s death. Rodenstock didn’t just sell one Thomas Jefferson bottle, he sold many of them, and he had billionaires waiting in line to throw money at him – aided and abetted by a major auction house and wine critics who clearly should have known better.
Rudy sold scores of bottles of 1945 Romanee Conti to several different wine collectors. The rarest wine on earth with 604 bottles produced and a wine that had a reputation of being the best wine ever made from shortly after the vintage was released. Forgive me for being blunt, but just how dumb do you have to be to believe that 60 to 65 years after the vintage someone like Rudy Kurniawan could own 1945 Romanee Conti in sufficient quantities as to be able to offer and sell you even one bottle, let alone three bottles or six bottles of the wine? But this happened over and over again.
Don,
the wish of multimillionaires and billionaires to own something almost nobody else has and can afford must be so erotic for these group of people that no red light is red enough. Most rich people must have been very clever and good at least in one field because they have been successful. But this fact does´t help them to be the target of forgers. And some of them are even not very good in what they are doing. I mean Rudy and the Ponsot story. Come on – this was a very silly mistake. Even so silly that I did´t read anywhere that it may have been possible some or the other way that the wine in question could carry a Ponsot label even before 1982 when the family actually started their production from this vineyard.
You did a very good job – the lovers of fine wine owe you something. But as hard as it may be to realize. The story is not over. Weakness of the human character is something you must have on the bill. Always.
Don–As you’ve pointed out (and has been otherwise mentioned in this thread), statements were made in auction catalogs to the effect that various “rare” bottles had been cellared by the consignor for decades. Given the objective reality, there is simply no way that those provenance statements could have been accurate.
Bruce
Jay–I think you and I agree on this; I’m also not a fan of mere guilt by association. Personally, I wouldn’t blame anyone in connection with this merely because they were present at one (or more) dinners at which Rudy shared some of his “rare” bottles.
Bruce
Here’s a new idea.
Or at least an idea I have not seen before. If I were at a dinner with 1947 Lafleur, or some of the other bottles served, I might have taken an empty bottle or two home to save. Did anyone do that? Are any of the empty bottles from those dinners still extant? Did perhaps Rudy object to someone taking home an empty because he wanted to destroy the evidence?
Related note - Zachys has its warehouse storage in White Plains. Inside, in a nondescript waiting room, there is a curio cabinet with empty bottles. Very high end stuff. Last time I was there, I took some photos. Anyone want to express an opinion? I do not know the source of the indicidual bottles. Here’s one example.
and another
Rudy would have objected to others taking the bottles home because he wanted to re-use them himself. Given that he was happy to re-use them, fear of discovery seems an unlikely motive.
The Vogue bottle seems to have a “consistent” wine stain from top to bottom. Although we don’t know when the stain appeared, at least it appeared after all three front labels were on the bottle. The stain does appear to be “old.” One question is why two importer labels on the front? Doing a bit of research, it seems Wildman acquired Bellows, but again why would there be both a Wildman and a Bellows importer label? I don’t have enough experience, however, to know if other known “genuine” bottles had similar duel importer labels.
Bruce
must be baller hardware
RUDY KURNIAWAN’S AGENT/DISTRIBUTOR – MARC LAZAR
Marc Daniel Lazar, the owner of St. Louis-based Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage, with locations in St. Louis, Chicago, New York (Edison NJ), Napa (American Canyon CA via sub-leased facilities at Copper Peak Logistics) and Washington DC, is one of the people who acted as a broker and agent for Rudy Kurniawan to distribute what we now know to be counterfeit wine. As detailed below, during 2010 and 2011 and likely continuing up to the time that Rudy Kurniawan was arrested in March of 2012, Marc Lazar and his companies acted as a retail seller and broker of Rudy Kurniawan’s wines. Lazar also purchased old bottles of wine for Rudy, and he consigned wines for Rudy to auction, including to Acker Merrall & Condit.
Marc Lazar is also a convicted sex offender. By virtue of his two felony sex offenses involving a 13 year old girl, Mr. Lazar cannot ever hold a liquor license of any type in the State of Missouri and he cannot serve as an officer or owner of a company with a liquor license. As a result, neither Cellar Advisors nor Domaine Wine Storage hold a Missouri liquor license – or ever have held such a license. Nevertheless, Marc Lazar, Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage have for many years offered, sold and transported wines within the State of Missouri (and elsewhere) without the required liquor licenses. This is a felony under Missouri law.
Marc Lazar’s Felony Sex Offense Convictions
Marc Daniel Lazar was born December 24, 1976. He attended Washington University in St. Louis from 1994 to 1998 and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree. In 2000 he received a Master’s Degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from St. Louis University. He then enrolled in Medical School. While in medical school Marc Lazar committed two felony sex offenses – first degree statutory sodomy and first degree statutory rape of a 13 year old girl. At the time these offenses took place, on March 16, 2003, Marc. Lazar was 26 years old.
Mr. Lazar pled guilty to the two felony counts on January 26, 2005. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for each count, with the prison sentence suspended except for 120 days to be served in county jail. Lazar appealed his sentence, but it was affirmed by the Missouri Court of Appeals in a published opinion on October 25, 2005. State v Lazar, 182 S.W.3d 578 (Mo.App. E.D. 2005). You will find the opinion here: STATE v. LAZAR (2005) | FindLaw. Marc Lazar is listed in the Missouri Sex Offender Registry. Offender Details
Marc Lazar - (L) Cellar Advisors Website + (R) 2014 Mo. Sex Offender Registry
Lazar’s Ownership of Cellar Advisors, Domaine Wine Storage and Domaine Transit
According to deposition testimony in a pending litigation against Cellar Advisors, Marc Lazar first began working in the wine industry in 1999 while attending graduate school at St. Louis University. Lazar worked as a salesperson for Wine Merchant of St. Louis.
Mr. Lazar’s arrest and conviction on child sexual abuse charges ended his plans to be a physician. Lazar dropped out of medical school. He subsequently established Cellar Advisors in St. Louis, which provided consulting, inventory and logistics services for wine collectors. While the Cellar Advisors website claims that the business was established in 2003 (see https://domainestorage.com/cellar-advisors/%20), according to the records of the Missouri Secretary of State, Cellar Advisors LLC was first established on July 14, 2005 – six months after Lazar pled guilty to the two felonies listed above. Marc Lazar was listed as the sole organizer and managing member of Cellar Advisors.
On August 1, 2006, Mr. Lazar established a wine storage business in St. Louis which operated under the fictitious business name Domaine Wine Storage. This business was also organized as Missouri limited liability company, which was named Cellar LLC. Marc Lazar was listed as the sole founder and managing member. The name of the LLC was subsequently changed to Domaine Saint Louis, LLC. Domaine Wine Storage today provides commercial wine storage in St. Louis, Chicago, Edison NJ, American Canyon CA (via sub-leased facilities at Copper Peak Logistics) and Washington DC. The Chicago, New Jersey and Washington DC locations are organized into separate LLCs, each of which is owned by Domaine Management, LLC, another Missouri LLC founded by Marc Lazar in 2011.
Mr. Lazar also owns and manages Domaine Transit, LLC, an entity organized in 2012 to handle wine shipping for Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage customers. Since at least 2006 Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage have offered wine shipping and wine moving services both in the State of Missouri and throughout the United States.
Cellar Advisors, Domaine Wine Storage, and Domaine Transit are located at 3300 Samuel Shepard Drive, St. Louis MO 63103 https://domainestorage.com/about-domaine-storage/ This is also Marc Lazar’s registered work address on the Missouri Sex Offender Registry. (See Address Information
Lazar, Cellar Advisors and Domaine Storage Do Not Hold, and Cannot Lawfully Hold, a Missouri Liquor License
At no time since January 26, 2005, the date of Marc Lazar’s criminal convictions, have Marc Lazar, Cellar Advisors or Domaine Wine Storage held a liquor license in the State of Missouri.
Under Missouri Revised Statutes § 311.060 and Missouri Alcoholic Beverage Regulations, Title 11, Division 70, Chapter 2, Section 11, any person who has been convicted of a sexual offense under Chapter 566 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, which includes both statutory rape (§ 566.032) and statutory sodomy (§ 566.050), the crimes of which Mr. Lazar was convicted, is permanently prohibited from holding a liquor license or engaging in the sale of wine or alcoholic beverages in the State of Missouri. The same statute and regulation prohibit anyone convicted of such offenses from being an owner or officer of an entity holding a liquor license.
Thus, Marc Lazar was at all times after January 26, 2005 prohibited from engaging in the sale of wine within the State of Missouri. Similarly, Cellar Advisors LLC and Domaine Storage have at all times been prohibited from obtaining a liquor license since Marc Lazar is the owner and managing member of both entities.
Illegal Sales and Brokering of Wine by Cellar Advisors and Domaine Storage
Notwithstanding the absence of a liquor license, Marc Lazar, Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage regularly offer and sell wines to their customers both in Missouri and throughout the United States. Since at least the fall of 2010 (and likely earlier) Marc Lazar has regularly sent out emailed wine offers and has sold wine on behalf of Cellar Advisors and Domaine Storage. In 2010 and 2011, these offers included wines being sold for Rudy Kurniawan, as discussed below.
Since November of 2014, Marc Lazar has sent out at least ten different emails to all Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage customers offering wines for sale. The latest email offer from Mr. Lazar, dated August 4, 2015, begins as follows:
- Dear Collectors,
Today we are very excited to bring you an offer of great wines priced below recent auction or retail. These bottles are all in perfect condition at our St. Louis warehouse.
Possibly more exciting, we are rolling out on online inventory and checkout process. You can always reserve bottles by replying to our emails, but now you can complete your purchase online, in real time!
This is a new process for us, so we welcome your feedback and comments. Our goal is to bring you excellent wines, sourced from your fellow storage clients and our trade partners at extremely sharp prices.
Cheers,
Marc
Wine is also offered for sale directly on the recently integrated Cellar Advisors/Domaine Storage website. https://domainestorage.com/product-category/wine/ At the time this post was written a total of 50 different fine and rare wines were offered for sale on Mr. Lazar’s website, ranging in price from $95 to $5,500 per bottle.
Marc Lazar and Cellar Advisors also routinely act as brokers/consignors of wine to wine auctions and they solicit wine collectors on the Domaine website to allow them to act as brokers for the sale of wine at auction. https://domainestorage.com/sell-wine-collection/ The website proudly proclaims that Marc Lazar, acting on behalf of Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage has “guide[d] the purchase and sale of over $100 Million of rare wines.” https://domainestorage.com/about-domaine-storage/
In a post by Marc Lazar in this thread on February 7, 2012, he described the brokerage activities of Cellar Advisors: “I have bid with and/or consigned to every major auction house at some point… [W]e might represent someone selling or buying at auction, but only one side of a trade.” http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=813159&sid=696eef264afaca4b48436d0466ea3d43#p813159 In a June 22, 2011 press release about Acker Merrall’s acquisition of Edward Roberts International in Chicago and Acker’s plan to conduct wine auctions in Chicago, Mr. Lazar stated: “Acker is one of the auction houses that we have placed consignments with for years….” In that same press release, Domaine Wine Storage solicited its clients to consign wines to Acker’s initial auction to be held in Chicago on October 22, 2011 and offered free transportation of the wines from St. Louis to Chicago. https://domainestorage.com/acker-merrall-condit-agrees-to-terms-for-the-acquistition-of-auction-house-edward-roberts-internatio+nal-domaine-wine-storage-to-provide-wine-storage-and-logistics/
In March of 2014 Marc Lazar consigned 867 lots of wine on behalf of one Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage customer to Heritage Wine Auctions in Los Angeles. The wines were offered by Heritage in a single-cellar wine auction titled as “The Exquisite Collection of a Northeastern Gentleman.” Marc Lazar wrote an introduction for the sale in the Heritage auction catalog. According to Mr. Lazar, the wines were all maintained and stored at Domaine’s facilities in St. Louis and Edison, NJ. A separate introduction written by Frank Martell, the head of the wine department at Heritage Wine Auctions, explained that Mr. Martell inspected the wines before the consignment at the Domaine facilities in St. Louis and New Jersey. According to Wine Market Journal, Heritage sold 725 of the 867 lots (not including mixed lots, which are not tracked), a total of 4,410 bottles, for $3,860,714.40, which includes the buyer’s premium.
Under Missouri Revised Statutes § 311.050 it is “unlawful for any person, firm, partnership or corporation to manufacture, sell, [or] expose for sale in this state intoxicating liquor, as defined in section 311.020, in any quantity, without taking out a license.” Section 311.020 defines intoxicating liquor to include “alcohol for beverage purposes [including] spirituous, vinous, fermented… containing in excess of one half of one percent by volume.”
Missouri Revised Statutes § 311.180.1 further provides that “No person, partnership, association of persons or corporation shall … sell or offer for sale intoxicating liquor within this state at wholesale or retail, or solicit orders for the sale of intoxicating liquor within this state without procuring a license from the supervisor of alcohol and tobacco control authorizing them so to do.” Section 311.550.6 further provides that:
- “Any person who shall sell in this state any intoxicating liquor without first having procured a license from the supervisor of liquor control authorizing him to sell such intoxicating liquor is guilty of a felony….”
Additionally, under Missouri’s Merchandising Practices Act (Missouri Revised Statutes § 407.020.1), “the concealment, suppression, or omission of any material fact in connection with the sale or advertisement of any merchandise in trade or commerce” is a felony. In this case, selling wine without the required Missouri liquor license and without disclosure to the purchaser that the seller is unlicensed would appear to be a felony violation of the Merchandising Practices Act.
Since Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage do not hold the required liquor licenses, it is quite possible that they are failing to collect the required sales tax on sales to Missouri residents. If sales are being made without collecting the required sales tax, that would be yet another felony violation, this time of Missouri Revised Statutes § 144.480.
The failure of Cellar Advisors and Domaine Wine Storage to hold a liquor license in Missouri also renders their sales of wine to many purchasers located outside the State of Missouri illegal as well. Those states which allow shipment of wines to consumers from out of state retailers do so under laws which generally require that the out of state shipper hold either a winery license or a retail liquor license in the state from which the wine is shipped. Some states also impose additional requirements on out of state sellers of wine, such as that the out of state seller be registered with the liquor authority of the state receiving the shipment and that the out of state seller pay liquor taxes or fees to the State. Thus, in most instances, where an unlicensed Missouri wine seller ships wine to another state, that sale of wine is illegal both in Missouri and in the state where the wine is shipped. Wines shipped illegally are invariably subject to seizure.
Marc Lazar’s Role as a Broker and Sales Agent for Rudy Kurniawan
Beginning no later than November 2010 and continuing thereafter, Marc Lazar and Cellar Advisors/Domaine Storage acted as retail sales agents for Rudy Kurniawan. Mr. Lazar sent out a series of email offers, in the name of Cellar Advisors and Domaine Storage, offering a series of very old DRC wines, including 1934 and 1945 Romanée Conti and 1945 La Tâche, full original wooden cases of Romanée Conti from 1959, 1962, 1966, 1969, 1971 and 1978, full cases of Romanée Conti in magnums from 1962, 1969 and 1978, individual magnums of 1985 Romanée Conti and 1990 La Tâche, cases of magnums of 1971 and 1978 Roumier Bonnes Mares and a full original wooden case of 1982 Pétrus. Mr. Lazar wrote that all of this wine came from a single source. The source was Rudy Kurniawan.
While the exact starting date for Mr. Lazar’s sales of Rudy Kurniawan’s wines is unclear to me, it apparently began sometime after the New York Times story of March 14, 2007 about the counterfeit Roumier wines sold by Rudy Kurniawan at the Cellar I and Cellar II auctions, after the April 27, 2007 Christie’s auction in Los Angeles at which Chateau Le Pin forced Christie’s to withdraw the featured lot of 1982 Chateau Le Pin magnums consigned by Rudy Kurniawan because they were counterfeit, after the April 25, 2008 Acker Merrall & Condit auction at which all of the Ponsot wines offered by Mr. Kurniawan were pulled at the request of Domaine Ponsot, and likely after the entry of the $10 million judgment in favor of Acker Merrall against Rudy Kurniawan on November 23, 2008 – all of which events were well publicized within the wine trade. As the emails in my possession also establish, Marc Lazar also knew exactly who he was dealing with – Rudy Kurniawan.
Sale of counterfeit 1966 DRC Romanée Conti
In the Spring of 2011, one of the recipients of the Lazar email offers, a wine broker/retailer, agreed to purchase two of the alleged OWC cases of Romanée Conti – the 1966 and 1978. The 1966 Romanée Conti (bearing bottle Nos. 05729-05740) was delivered first. The wine broker/retailer consigned this case of wine to Greg Martin Wine Auctions for their inaugural wine auction scheduled to be held in San Francisco in June of 2011. Photographs of the case artfully displayed on a large antique table with a tapestry background appeared on the Greg Martin website and in a pre-auction press release. The same photo later appeared in the auction catalog. (See http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2011/04/27/1129594/RomaneeContifull.jpg.)
Before the auction was held, Greg Martin Auctions was acquired by Heritage Auctions, which is headquartered in Dallas and has a Wine Department which operates out of Los Angeles. The venue for the auction was then moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and the auction became a joint Greg Martin/Heritage wine auction.
The 1966 Romanée Conti, which was Lot 263 in the auction catalog, had multiple significant discrepancies, including different glass colors, different bottle heights, five differently colored capsules (some with grey lettering, some with white lettering and some with the lettering cut off), a host of label defects, and a highly suspect purportedly original wooden case. Some of these problems were not immediately apparent in the artistically arranged photo which appeared in the catalog and the pre-auction publicity. But in a separate photo which appeared on the Heritage website, with the wines displayed side by side, the problems were incredibly obvious. You didn’t even need to look at the labels to know this case was unquestionably counterfeit.
Counterfeit 1966 Romanee Conti from Rudy Kurniawan sold by Marc Lazar
For a much larger and more detailed photo, click this link: http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s385/doncornwell/Lot263--66RomaneeConti-large_zps0ca760e4.jpg~original If you click on the image again, it should enlarge to a very large size. Note the variation in bottle height and glass and capsule color.
As I explained two years ago in this thread, this was one of the most obviously counterfeit cases of wine that I have ever seen. http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=863538&sid=6264a979b03a7fd88697507f9e4ffc71#p863538
Nevertheless, this lot was sold at the auction for $101,575. The purchaser, upon seeing the second photograph, asked that the sale be cancelled because the wine was obviously counterfeit. After obtaining verification from importer Wilson-Daniels that the wine was in fact counterfeit, Heritage agreed to cancel the sale. The bottles were shipped back to Marc Lazar, who then returned them to Rudy Kurniawan.
The same numbered bottles of 1966 Romanée Conti were subsequently re-offered for sale by Antonio Castanos on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan through Spectrum Wine Auctions. One of the numbered bottles (No. 05736) was sold as part of a three bottle lot of 1966 Romanée Conti (lot 426) in the Spectrum Hong Kong Auction in December 2011. Ten other numbered bottles from the original case (bottle numbers 05729-05734 and 05737-05740) were consigned by Mr. Castanos on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan to the Spectrum/Vanquish sale in London in February 2012 as part of Lot 118. (_See_http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s385/doncornwell/Marc%20Lazar/Page%20131%20from%20Spectrum.Feb%202012%20catalog_zpsaw0e5jm1.jpg~original ) [Note: Two replacement bottles bearing bottle numbers 05753 and 05754 were added by Mr. Kurniawan to bring the lot back to 12 bottles and the alleged OWC was not included in the Spectrum/Vanquish sale.]. This case was one of twenty lots of DRC and Vogue wines that were pulled from the Spectrum/Vanquish sale following my initial post in this thread. These same bottles of 1966 Romanée Conti were introduced as exhibits at the trial of Rudy Kurniawan as examples of the counterfeit wines he attempted to sell in London.
Sale of counterfeit 1978 Romanée Conti
Following the cancellation of the Heritage auction sale of the counterfeit 1966 Romanée Conti, the wine broker/retailer who purchased it from Marc Lazar demanded a refund. Lazar reported back that the undisclosed owner [Rudy Kurniawan] had spent the funds received and did not have sufficient funds on hand to be able to make a cash refund. Lazar then offered, in lieu of a cash refund, to trade the 12 bottles of 1978 Romanée Conti that the retailer/broker had also committed to purchase for the counterfeit 1966 Romanée Conti. (Mr. Lazar had been offering this same case of wine on behalf of Kurniawan since at least November 2010 for $140,000.) The broker/retailer accepted the offer and subsequently resold the case of 1978 Romanée Conti to a wine retailer in New York City. The wine was to be drop-shipped directly from the Domaine Wine Storage warehouse in St. Louis to the wine retailer in New York.
The 1978 Romanée Conti (bearing bottle nos. 000578-000589) was shipped to New York by next day air shipment on June 17, 2011. However, when the retailer/broker received the electronic shipment confirmation while the wine was enroute, it stated that the wine had been shipped from Pacific Wine Distributors located in Duarte California (a part of greater Los Angeles). The retailer/broker immediately emailed Marc Lazar wanting to know why the shipment documents showed that the wine was being shipped from California rather than St. Louis. Mr. Lazar responded that the wine had come from “pacific wine imports [sic]. They are a wholesaler and distributor in so cal….The seller is a partner.” Pacific Wine Distributors was in fact the location where Rudy Kurniawan stored his wines. Pacific Wine Distributors also handled all of Rudy’s in-bound and out-bound wine shipments. Upon arrival in New York, the purchaser rejected the 1978 Romanée Conti based on authenticity concerns – for good reason as demonstrated below.
Six of the twelve bottles of counterfeit 1978 Romanée Conti shipped by Marc Lazar to replace the counterfeit 1966
(For full size photos of all twelve bottles of 1978 Romanée Conti , see these links:
http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s385/doncornwell/Marc%20Lazar/ML-RC78cs-2_zps9bab5b0f.jpg~original and http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s385/doncornwell/Marc%20Lazar/ML-RC78cs-1_zpsfc6b7499.jpg~original.)
The most obviously incorrect feature of the Kurniawan/Lazar bottles of 1978 Romanée Conti is the capsules. Authentic 1978 DRC wines had vineyard-designated capsules; whereas these bottles have the older style “Mise Du Domaine” capsules. The Monopole labels are also incorrect. The font on the 1978 is a thick bold font, roughly 50% thicker than the original labels. The word MONOPOLE is also in a somewhat thicker font. The extra thick outer crescent border line on the Monopole labels (which is only apparent on full sized photos) and the resulting insufficient spacing between the double crescent borders is notably incorrect. The crown above the O in Leroy on the strip labels lacks the appropriate details of original strip labels and it appears to be in the incorrect color (battleship gray vs. green/gold.) The main label contains one glaring printing defect on the number 3 on the line “6.535 Bouteilles Récoltées.” [Note that none of the experts who worked with the government on the Kurniawan trial had the opportunity to physically inspect these bottles for further defects.]
1978 DRC Wines with correct labels and capsules from Bonhams London September 2013
(For a highly zoomable photo of the correct bottles of 1978 Romanée Conti from Bonhams see: Bonhams : Domaine de la Romanée Conti Assortment Romanée Conti 1978 (1) La Tâche 1978 (5) Romanée-St-Vivant 1978 (4) Grands-Echézeaux 1978 (2) and click on the photo repeatedly wherever you want to enlarge it. You can also use the plus sign to enlarge the photo.) Note the differences in the fonts and the crescent borders on the Monopole label, the crown and the color of the print of Leroy on the strip labels, and the difference in the font on the number 6.535.
Lazar purchases old burgundy bottles for Rudy
In addition to selling counterfeit wines for Rudy, Marc Lazar also purchased bottles of older vintage burgundy for Rudy Kurniawan. For example, a few weeks after the counterfeit 1978 Romanée Conti was shipped, Marc Lazar purchased two parcels of red burgundy, a total of 136 bottles spanning vintages from 1937 to 1964, from the same wine retailer/broker. The bottles purchased, which included several DRC wines, came from a Florida collection and all of them had low to mediocre fill levels, which is actually consistent with real-world conditions for most authentic bottles from that era. The connection to Rudy Kurniawan only became apparent on September 22, 2011 when David Roach, Mr. Lazar’s St. Louis warehouse manager, wrote an email to the wine retailer/broker asking him to immediately ship the two parcels of older burgundy to St. Louis. The email from Mr. Roach included a copy of an email sent to him the same day by Lauren McIntosh of Cellar Advisors/Domaine Wine Storage asking whether “these two parcels arrived in STL & were shipped to Rudy?”
Lazar brokers Rudy’s counterfeit wines to Acker Merrall auctions and then assists Rudy to sell fake DRC bottles consigned to Acker to Mission Fine Wines in a private sale
Sometime in the Spring of 2011, Marc Lazar of Cellar Advisors consigned a series of bottles to auction at Acker, Merrall & Condit on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan. The exact number of bottles consigned for Mr. Kurniawan is currently unknown, but the consignment included at least 15 bottles and 10 magnums of DRC wines – five magnums of 1978 DRC La Tâche, one magnum of 1990 La Tâche, four magnums of 1978 Romanée Conti and 15 bottles of 1978 Romanée Conti – all of which were later determined to be counterfeit. The wine was consigned to Acker Merrall by “Mr. Paul Lazar Myrtle.” The listed contacts for Paul Lazar Myrtle were marc@cellaradvisors.com [Marc Lazar] and Lauren@cellaradvisors.com [Lauren McIntosh]. The wine was delivered to Acker’s warehouse.
In July of 2011, Richard Brierley of Vanquish Wines in London, who was one of Rudy’s three active wine brokers (along with Antonio Castanos and Marc Lazar), offered a large quantity of Rudy Kurniawan’s counterfeit DRC wines to James Ross of Oakwood Advisors, a wine broker located in New York City. As detailed previously in this thread, Mr. Brierley had known Rudy Kurniawan for many years while Brierley was in charge of North American wine sales for Christie’s and was based in New York. During this time period Rudy Kurniawan made several consignments to Christie’s, including the April 2007 auction at Christie’s Beverly Hills at which six magnums of 1982 Chateau Le Pin consigned by Rudy Kurniawan were withdrawn at the request of the Chateau because they were counterfeit. Mr. Brierley left Christie’s in mid-2009, more than a year after the withdrawal of Rudy’s fake Ponsot wines at the April 2008 Acker Merrall auction, while Christie’s and Rudy Kurniawan were engaged in negotiating what turned out to be a two-year wine consignment agreement. Brierley then joined Vanquish and began acting as an agent for the sale of Rudy Kurniawan’s wines.
Mr. Brierley represented to James Ross in July of 2011 that the wines offered to Ross were owned by Darmawan Saputra, purportedly a Los Angeles wine collector. (As the FBI later discovered, some of the boxes in which the wines were shipped to New York had the name Darmawan Saputra printed on them.) Darmawan Saputra was the alias of Rudy Kurniawwan’s eldest brother, who lives in Hong Kong. It was also an alias which Rudy Kurniawan had used to purchase and sell wine at various times since 2001.
On July 25, 2011, the 15 bottles and 10 magnums of DRC wines consigned to Acker Merrall by Marc Lazar on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan were “withdrawn” from the “Paul Lazar Myrtle” auction consignment and were “returned for private sale.” The bottles were packed into four parcels and were delivered to Richard Brierley at a wine storage facility located in the Bronx, New York named Wine Cellarage. This was the same wine storage location that had been utilized by Mr. Brierley to store wines for Christie’s New York. When personnel from Acker, Merrall packed the wine, they included a printout from Acker’s records listing the wines and the fact that they were being “returned for private sale.” The document was used as a packing list for the four parcels and a copy was included in one of the boxes delivered to Wine Cellarage.
The list of wines withdrawn from Rudy’s “Paul Lazar Myrtle” consignment at Acker and sold in the private sale to Mission Fine Wines
(provided by the government’s authentication expert, Maureen Downey)
Mr. Brierley combined the Kurniawan/Lazar DRC bottles received from Acker with the “Darmawan Saputra” bottles that had been shipped to Wine Cellarage from Pacific Wine Distributors in California. On July 28, 2011, Mr. Brierley presented the combined set of wines for pre-purchase inspection to James Ross and representatives of Mission Fine Wines at Wine Cellarage. According to two witnesses, the buyers were specifically assured by Richard Brierley that the wines were not from Rudy Kurniawan. Mission Fine Wines elected to purchase the wines on behalf of its customer and on July 28, 2011 the customer transferred $2.46 million to Vanquish in payment for the wines. After Mission Fine Wines accepted the wines, they found the “packing list” document from Acker Merrall in the bottom of one of the boxes.
In conjunction with Rudy Kurniawan’s criminal trial and sentencing, 118 bottles from the Vanquish sale to Mission Fine Wines, including bottles from the Acker consignment list above, were examined by Maureen Downey on behalf of the government. All of them were found to be counterfeit.
On February 8, 2012, seven months after the private sale by Richard Brierley and Vanquish to Mission Fine Wines’ customer, Rudy Kurniawan attempted to sell a large quantity of counterfeit wines at the Spectrum/Vanquish auction held in London. This time Antonio Castanos was the agent acting for Rudy Kurniawan and Richard Brierley was one of the “experts” acting for Spectrum/Vanquish that allegedly authenticated the wines in the auction. This is the auction which spawned this thread, the withdrawal of 20 lots of DRC and Vogue wines from the auction, and the subsequent arrest of Rudy Kurniawan on March 8, 2012. One of the many discrepancies in the Spectrum/Vanquish auction that we discovered was that it included a magnum of 1971 Romanée Conti with bottle number 0048 – the same bottle number which appeared on one of the magnums of 1971 Romanée Conti sold by Vanquish to Mission Fine Wines only seven months previously.
On March 22, 2012, Acker, Merrall & Condit issued a press release regarding the arrest of Rudy Kurniawan stating in pertinent part:
- “The events surrounding the recent arrest of Rudy Kurniawan have left many in the rare and fine wine industry, including Acker Merrall & Condit Company (“AMC”), in a state of shock and disbelief on news that the government purportedly found and seized evidence of a wine counterfeiting operation in Mr. Kurniawan’s home.
AMC has not auctioned any wine consigned by Mr. Kurniawan for several years. Nor has AMC ever knowingly sold counterfeit wine, whether consigned by Mr. Kurniawan or anyone else.”
The wording of Acker Merrall’s press release seems to have been chosen very carefully. It simply does not address the reality of what happened – Rudy Kurniawan’s wines were consigned to Acker by Marc Lazar acting as a “straw man” consignor – just as Antonio Castanos acted as Rudy’s “straw man” consignor in auctions conducted by Christie’s, Zachy’s, Heritage and Spectrum. The language of Mr. Kapon’s press release distinctly reminds me of the post by Spectrum President Jason Boland on page one of this thread on February 4, 2012, four days before the Spectrum/Vanquish auction: “Rudy is not a consignor in this auction and has not been a consignor with Spectrum since we have started.” _See_http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=809898#p809898
Conclusion
Although there has heretofore been little public discussion of his role, Marc Lazar acted as an agent and distributor for Rudy Kurniawan’s counterfeit wine creations – selling Rudy’s wines through Lazar’s illegal retail sales operation, brokering Rudy’s wines into wine auctions at Acker Merrall, and buying old bottles of burgundy for Rudy which likely became new counterfeit feedstock. Obviously, there are more inter-connections between Rudy Kurniawan, Marc Lazar (Cellar Advisors/Domaine) and John Kapon (Acker Merrall & Condit) after April 2008 than the wine industry and the wine community have been generally aware of.
It is my hope that this post will provide a warning to the wine industry and to wine collectors about who Marc Lazar really is, the nature of his prior child sexual abuse crimes, and the fact his businesses operate illegally. The unlicensed sale and brokering of wine, a felony in the State of Missouri, is only one aspect of Mr. Lazar’s unlicensed and illegal business operations. In a future post I will discuss Domaine’s unlicensed wine shipments and interstate movement of wine, and the unlicensed promotion, marketing and sale of wine insurance.
I also hope that this post will stimulate more discussion in the wine industry and among wine collectors about the necessity of changing the wine auction laws so that the true identity of the owners of property offered at auctions must be disclosed both to the auction house and to the public. In my view, it should be illegal for brokers to consign property to auctions without disclosure to the auction house of the true owner of the property. This type of practice facilitates and promotes fraud both by the “real” sellers and by auction houses.
On the broader level, anonymous selling at auction should be eliminated. At a minimum the name and city location of the seller should be disclosed on demand to interested bidders and purchasers. After April of 2008, Rudy Kurniawan’s wines were consigned to five different auction houses, either directly or through “straw man” broker-consignors. The unsuspecting public paid tens of millions of dollars for these wines but clearly would not have done so if Rudy’s identity had been disclosed.
(Future Post … Part II: Marc Lazar’s Illegal Wine Empire. Selling and brokering wine is not Marc Lazar’s only unlicensed business activity – a look at Domaine’s wine shipment, wine movement and wine insurance business.)