If you ever visited the PC warehouse before Rudy was detained, there were plenty of pallets with Kurniawan’s name on them. Fox and Rudy did plenty of business together.
Louis:
Welcome to Wine Berserkers and welcome to the thread. Thank you for your kind words.
The reason for those “Interdiction” stamps is that DRC basically tried to monopolize the market in the US and the UK for its designated importer. The prices charged in the US market for DRC wines were always historically higher than they were in the UK and Europe. DRC attempted to prohibit its UK and various European importers from selling the wines that they purchased from DRC at lower prices in the US by imposing contractual restrictions on the importers. And by placing the the “Interdiction” labels on the bottles, DRC tried to prevent anyone from “gray market importing” the DRC wines into the US.
In the 1970s the US Supreme Court and other federal courts held that resale price maintenance agreements violated the US antitrust laws and also held that trademarked goods could be imported from other countries and sold in the US without running afoul of the US trademark laws. The combination of the two developments gave rise to practice of “gray market importing.” DRC stopped using the interdiction labels, but continued to impose contractual restrictions on their various importers and agents that prevented them from selling wines into the US and UK markets.
As you may recall, Lalou Bize-Leroy was removed as a co-director of DRC in 1992 because she had violated the contractual restrictions between Leroy and DRC which prohibited Leroy from selling any DRC wines in the US market. There has been extensive publicity in the past about Madame Leroy, allegedly to raise cash in order to fund the formation of Domaine Leroy and its purchase of two domaines, selling the 1988, 1989 and 1990 DRC wines into the US via Leroy’s agent in Italy. However, based on the evidence that’s out there, I believe that Leroy started selling DRC wines into the US, in competition with Wilson-Daniels, even earlier, at least beginning with the 1985 vintage. (More on this to come I suspect.)
Stephen:
Zachys reports that the bottles in Lot 3937 were mis-cataloged so they have been withdrawn by Zachys. Thanks for the alert!
By the way, I think everyone will love this. According to Wine Market Journal, here are the prior sales of alleged pre-1985 Mugnier Musigny:
1983:
Internet Acker Merrall Condit 11/30/2009 1 $254.74 $254.74
North America Acker Merrall Condit 6/10/2009 3 $636.84 $212.28
1981:
North America Acker Merrall Condit 6/10/2009 2 $587.85 $293.93
Does anyone care to guess where those bottles came from?
Hardy Rodenstock?
P Hickner
There are 21 btls of Mugnier Musigny prior to 1985 on CT, going back to 1921. Just FYI.
It is Rudy at work Chuck! According to my friend John Tilson, the author of the Underground Wine Journal, the Chateau Chambolle Musigny/Mugnier family made no wine of any kind between 1950 and 1978. So the handful of listed bottles of Musigny from 1921 to 1937 could conceivably be authentic because the Domaine owned Musigny vines at that time and was making wine (though I would have my doubts in the absence of seeing them and having them authenticated by the domaine or or a professional). But the 1955, 1959 and 1962 Musignys on the Cellar Tracker list? They have to be Rudy specials, just like the Ponsot Clos St. Denis and Chambertin from before 1982.
I interviewed Frédéric Mugnier for a book I wrote (and which will be released in October).
He explained the following :
-
Prior to the vines being leased to Faiveley in 1950 :
(The vines are normally leased after the harvest.)
The family would bottle some of the wine for their personal consumption.
Some of the wine was occasionally sold Under the label "Château de Chambolle-Musigny, beginning in 1878. -
From 1978 to 1983 :
The family took the vines back. Bernard Clair was in charge of the Domaine as régisseur. (He did not rent the vines.)
All of the wine was sold in bulk to the négoce from 1978 to 1983.
So there can only be négociant bottlings and labels for these vintages. -
1984 is Frédéric’s first vintage with his name on the label.
Bernard Clair stayed on as a régisseur until the 1985 harvest.
Frédéric’s first vinification was 1985 but he completed the élevage of the 1984 which he sold Under his name.
Regards, Khiem
Incredible, just incredible knowledge !
When I registered I knew 1% of what I know know about Burgundy. (now back to me front row and reading)
Thank you Khiem. Very useful!
Don,
I saw you on French TV Tuesday night, in a documentary on Rudy Kurnawian : Raisins Amers. It was shown on ARTE, the French-German channel. They did a good job.
Khiem
Hardly seems worth the trouble at those prices. I thought we were talking about wines in the four and five figure range. The hammer price For each bottle was under $250.
Is there a Best Post Of The Year award? If so I nominate this one! 
Maureen Downey, who laboriously cataloged all of the evidence introduced in the Kurniawan trial after the trial was completed, informs me that the counterfeit labels introduced into evidence at the Kurniawan trial included the following vintages of F. Mugnier Musigny: 1921, 1923, 1926, 1929, 1934, 1937, 1943, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1962.
For those of you who are members of WineFraud.com you can see all of the counterfeit labels in question. At the top of the labels in question it says, in white lettering with an orange background, Caves Maxim’s De Paris. Below an engraving of a Maxim’s it says “F. Mugnier, Propriétaire a Chambolle-Musigny”.
UPDATE:
Here is an example of one of the labels in question:
Counterfeit 1937 F. Mugnier Musigny Label from the evidence introduced at the US v. Rudy Kurniawan trial (Copyright WineFraud.com)
As Khiem Le confirms above, there were no wines produced under the Mugnier or Chateau de Chambolle Musigny labels between 1950 and 1984. Moreover, on any wines produced prior to 1950, the correct name for the producer would have been Chateau de Chambolle Musigny, not F. Mugnier.
So all of the stuff reported on Cellar Tracker as F. Mugnier Musigny from prior to 1985, as well as the bottles sold by Acker in 2009, are likely from Rudy.
Who wants some “1984 Mugnier Musigny” for just €1150/bot!
http://www.jahrhundertweine.de/shpSR.php?A=10523&p1=266&p2=325&p3=582&sf=mugnier
-Josh
Here they are, all vintages.
What’s interesting is those bogus bottles are in a hidden celler so when you drill down into the wine detail page and then click on community (shows who owns them) or stores (shows where they were purchased) nothing shows up. Obviously Eric could see… BTW hidden cellars are not unusual especially when they have lots of expensive wines.
Like these 9 bottles of '62
It’d also be interesting to know which user actually created the bogus vintages in CT. Doesn’t mean they’re anything other than a victim. Only Eric knows who creates a new wine/vintage.
But if there’s a user that’s creating lots of bogus wines in CT then that could be a counterfeiter…
Unfortunately, this website very frequently offers wines that I believe to be counterfeit. This is a source to stay away from – completely.
Just by chance I saw that it’s shown and was able to record it. Good to know that it’s worth watching, thanks.
This information is not that hard to obtain, is it? If Acker is auctioning this wine, shouldn’t their license be revoked and/or people from the company indicted?
Don–I’m not an expert in old Burgundy, and I don’t play one on TV. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen any Burgundy label that looks like that (at least, not a legitimate one)–with an orange background and “Caves Maxim’s De Paris.” Have you?
Bruce