MORE INFO ON THE COUNTERFEITERS CONVICTED IN FRANCE
Here is some information that you won’t find in the newspaper article.
One of the two individuals convicted had a fake Belgian driver’s license identifying him as Kevin Van Holsbeek. (Bear in mind this name is an alias.) Mr. Van Holsbeek first came to my attention in early September when a good friend who is a French wine merchant forwarded me copies of photos of 2010 Dugat-Py Chambertin and Mazis Chambertin suspected to be counterfeit. The wines were being offered by a Belgian source and they were indeed counterfeit. While the labels were quite well done, both bottles had plain white capsules (which looked somewhat sloppily applied.). However, some years ago the Domaine began using branded capsules, and both Chambertin and Mazis in the 2010 vintage should have had the branded capsules. The 2010 Mazis also had hand cut and highly irregular neck labels.
Counterfeit 2010 Chambertin offered in Belgium_______________2012 Chambertin from the Domaine in its OWC
A range of 2010 to 2012 Dugat-Py Wines from the Domaine, with their branded capsules
Three bottles of Counterfeit 2010 Dugat-Py Mazis Chambertin offered in Belgium_________________Authentic 2010 Dugat-Py Mazis Chambertin
I made inquiries to my friend Joris Scott, who runs Sylvie’s Wine Auctions in Belgium. Joris frequently provides assistance in dealing with counterfeit wine in Europe and independently investigates wine counterfeiting there. He immediately referred me to two well known Belgian wine merchants who had purchased counterfeit Dugat-Py Chambertin from Mr. Van Holsbeek. Van Holsbeek had claimed that the wines had been purchased by his father along with other high end burgundies from a wine merchant located in Southern France. He produced an invoice from a wine merchant in Southern France, showing that Thierry Van Holsbeek of Bruxelles [Brussels] had purchased, among other wines, 24 bottles of 2005 Dugat-Py Mazis Chambertin and 3 or 4 bottles each of 2004, 2005 and 2006 Dugat-Py Chambertin. Van Holsbeek also offered a copy of his (fake) Belgian drivers license to confirm that he lived at the address indicated on the drivers license.
Shortly after completing the initial purchase transaction, Van Holsbeek offered to supply more bottles of Dugat-Py Chambertin. To put things in perspective, Dugat-Py produces from a half barrel (12 cases) to one barrel (24 cases) of Chambertin per year. For anyone to be able to buy three or four bottles of three different vintages of Dugat-Py Chambertin from a single retail source was already stretching credibility (too far in my judgment), but when Van Holsbeek claimed to have more bottles available, the alarm bells started ringing.
The merchant then began a careful side-by-side examination of the bottles they had purchased and noticed that the bottle codes on the 2005 Chambertin did not match and that there seemed to be subtle differences in the labels. They soon realized that the wines were counterfeit.
Over the last few months additional counterfeits which are believed to originate from the same source have been offered (and in some cases sold) to other merchants and brokers in Belgium and the Netherlands. These bottles have included, for example, 2013 Roumier Chambolle Musigny Les Amoureuses and 2012 Rouget Cros Parantoux. Unless you have an original bottle to compare with the fakes side by side, it would be exceptionally easy for even a well-trained wine professional to be deceived. (However, I will say that the most notable tell on the Roumier Amoureuses was the absence of the prooftag on the neck of the fake Amoureuses, while the real bottle has one.) The person offering these wines (who was not one of the individuals arrested) has used several different names and has frequent changes of email address.
Counterfeit 2013 Roumier Amoureuses on the Left; Authentic 2013 Roumier Amoureuses on the right
Counterfeit 2013 Roumier Amoureuses on the left [Note: the branded capsule]; Authentic 2013 Roumier Amoureuses with ProofTag on the Right
Counterfeit 2012 Rouget Cros Parantoux on the left; Authentic 2012 Rouget Cros Parantoux on the right
As I have said here before, the volume of counterfeit bottles in Europe is now overwhelming – exceeding the volume that were in circulation in Europe at the time that Rudy Kurniawan was arrested (in March of 2012) by many multiples. The number of wine merchants and wine brokers has grown exponentially since 1995 along with the growth of the internet. Many of these merchants and brokers are eager to purchase highly collectible bottles, particularly of burgundy. This provides almost endless opportunities for purported collectors to inject counterfeit wines into the trade. Up to now, outside of Italy, Europe has shown little interest in prosecuting people for selling counterfeit wines.
These two arrests and convictions took place because some Belgian merchants who were defrauded by very plausible counterfeits got angry enough to do something about it and went to the Domaine about it. Let’s hope this is the start of something positive in France.
