RUDY KURNIAWAN & GLOBAL WINE AUCTION FRAUD THREAD (MERGED)

[scott_c]

I was surprised to see that this hadn’t been posted yet:

Wine fraud Rudy Kurniawan’s rise, fall, and plans for the future

This, from his lawyer, is suitably terrifying:

“I’ve had inquiries about [him working] as a tasting consultant,” said Mooney. Kurniawan could even go right on copycatting sought-after wine, so long as he told purchasers that he made it. His model, Mooney pointed out, could be prolific American art forger Ken Perenyi, who went from illegally peddling his copies as the real deal to selling “signed” copies of paintings by first-tier artists after the FBI began to surveil him.

“Collectors would love to know what a great old wine tastes like,” said Mooney. “Rudy already knows. He could make it to order.”

[John_Glas]

Funny that Rudy came up on add a friend on Facebook yesterday. I had to pass.

[Al_Osterheld]

I’m told it’s a counterfeit Rudy.

-Al

[John_Danza]

This is an interesting quote from the article:

“Collectors would love to know what a great old wine tastes like,” said Mooney. “Rudy already knows. He could make it to order.”

Does Rudy really have a clue what the “great old wines” taste like? I doubt that anyone who ever drank Rudy’s wines knows, because they didn’t drink “great old wines”. They drank Rudy’s concoctions.

[Mel_Hill]

IIRC, Rudy spent millions buying up trophy wines (raising the prices across the board) sharing them
to gain access to the “heavy lumber” crowd THEN started he started counterfeiting said trophy wines and selling them having already establishing himself as a great wine taster etc… So, he does know what “great old wine” tastes like and used that knowledge to sell his fake wines…

[jordan_jacobs]

IIRC, Rudy spent millions buying up trophy wines (raising the prices across the board) sharing them
to gain access to the “heavy lumber” crowd THEN started he started counterfeiting said trophy wines and selling them having already establishing himself as a great wine taster etc… So, he does know what “great old wine” tastes like and used that knowledge to sell his fake wines…

This!

[Sean_S_y_d_n_e_y]

I remain unconvinced that more than even a small handful of unicorn-type bottles that Rudy brought to tastings were authentic.

[DougS]

He was buying authentic bottles of super rare wines at auctions and restaurants regularly. No one else knew which were authentic and not, but Rudy did, and he certainly tasted many authentic, iconic wines.

[Don_Cornwell]

COUNTERFEIT 1959 LA TÂCHE IN TODAY’s ACKER NEW YORK [corrected] “HOLY GRAIL” SALE

I received a request from a colleague to review the first 288 lots of the Acker Hong Kong “Holy Grail” sale which began in New York at 8 pm local time on November 19. When I did that I found one outrageous counterfeit – Lot 210 – Two bottles of purported 1959 DRC La Tâche. Almost everything about the labels on the bottle shown in the catalog is clearly wrong.

Acker Merrall Lot 210

The neck label is missing. The bottle number font is completely incorrect for a 1959 DRC wines. Compare the font shown in the Acker photo of Lot 210 (incorrect for 1959) with Acker Lot No. 199 (correct font). See also the attached exemplars of the authentic versions of the same wine from HDH Auction in May of 2008, Steen Ohman’s bottle of 1959 La Tâche, and the same wine from Don Stott’s auction at Acker Merrall NY in October of 2011. The print on Récoltées is totally wrong – and laughable. That big wing from a T or an F that appears over the “R” on Récoltées in Acker Lot 210 is not supposed to be there. (The big chemical erasure smudge should have told the person authenticating this something). The symbol “№” is missing fom the label. Another Rudy tell here is that the letters “ées” in Récoltées are not aligned correctly with the rest of the word. These three letters are aligned below the rest of the word, including the L. I’ve seen this many times before. There is way too much space between the Green AOC line and # of bottles line. There is way too little space between Récoltées and L’Associe-Gérant. The signature of H. de Villaine aligns too high versus ANNÉE 1959 based on the attached exemplars from authentic bottles.

1959 La Tâche from Hart-Davis-Hart Auction May 2008

1959 La Tâche photo from Steen Öhman (Wine Hog)

1959 La Tâche photo from Don Stott’s October 2011 auction sale at Acker Merrall

There are also lots which have physical discrepancies versus the original releases. These wines could not be authentic if they purport to be original releases, but could possibly be authentic if there was documented provenance to show the source and date of purchase as they might be wines from very late releases.

Lot 96 - 1959 Vogüé Musigny: The bottle shown in the Acker catalog contains a vineyard-branded Vogue capsule. There were no such capsules on the 1959 Vogüé Musigny when the wine was released. See the Acker catalog photo of Lots 83 and 84, which have plain red capsules. See also the photo of the 1959 Vogüé Musigny in the HDH auction photo next to the 1959 DRC La Tâche attached above. The vineyard branded capsules first began with the 1971 vintage. To be authentic, this lot would have had to be purchased between 1973 and 1978 directly from the Domaine. There is nothing in the catalog to indicate that.

Lot 98 1962 Vogüé Musigny: Like Lot 96, this bottle also has a branded capsule and thus requires provenance information to overcome the presumption that it bears the incorrect capsule.

Lot 200: 1971 DRC Grands Échézeaux: The 1971 DRC vintage did not have vineyard-labeled capsules. (These capsules were first used on the 1976 vintage that was released in 1978.) I have seen some 1971 DRC wines which were claimed to have have been purchased directly from Leroy with DRC vineyard-labeled capsules, but again this requires explanation/documented provenance that is not contained in the catalog.

Lot 215 1971 La Tâche Magnum This lot has a unique two-signature label bearing the the signatures of Lalou Bize-Leroy and Aubert de Villaine which was first used on the 1972 vintage, after they took over as DRC co-managers. This particular label has a very light/thin signature from Lalou, was utilized only on the 1972 and 1973 vintages. This same two-signature label has appeared on some 1971 large format bottles about which several of us has expressed doubts, but which have never been fully resolved one way or the other. This lot bears a Domaine Chandon import strip label. Domaine Chandon was not a DRC importer when the 1971 vintage was initially released, but did become a DRC importer the following year. So this one is in doubt.

Lot 246 1971 DRC Richebourg As noted in connection with Lot 215, there were no vineyard-labeled capsules on the 1971 vintage DRC wines. So once again, this requires further explanation/documented provenance.

UPDATE (11/23): Acker removed Lot 210 (1959 La Tache) from the sale but did not remove any of the other lots.

[Mark_Golodetz]

The timing is perfect. As soon as Rudy is released, Acker is auctioning off arguably fake wine. Coincidence? I am sure it is, but there is a wonderful irony in it.

[John_Danza]

He was buying authentic bottles of super rare wines at auctions and restaurants regularly. No one else knew which were authentic and not, but Rudy did, and he certainly tasted many authentic, iconic wines.

How do you know that he wasn’t buying fakes? It’s not like he was the first guy to create fake bottles. And he was buying from the same auction houses that subsequently authenticated his fakes and sold them.

[Sean_S_y_d_n_e_y]

He was buying authentic bottles of super rare wines at auctions and restaurants regularly. No one else knew which were authentic and not, but Rudy did, and he certainly tasted many authentic, iconic wines.

From what Don and others have said, his auction buying has been greatly exaggerated, and it seems there was a lot of nonpayment when he did win lots.

I believe he bought a decent amount of wine when he arrived on the scene. I do not believe for a moment that almost any of the seemingly endless supply of unicorn bottles that had not been seen in the marketplace for years if not decades that he brought to the rich guy circle jerks were authentic.

[HoosJustinG]

He was buying authentic bottles of super rare wines at auctions and restaurants regularly. No one else knew which were authentic and not, but Rudy did, and he certainly tasted many authentic, iconic wines.

From what Don and others have said, his auction buying has been greatly exaggerated, and it seems there was a lot of nonpayment when he did win lots.

I believe he bought a decent amount of wine when he arrived on the scene. I do not believe for a moment that almost any of the seemingly endless supply of unicorn bottles that had not been seen in the marketplace for years if not decades that he brought to the rich guy circle jerks were authentic.

Zachy’s CEO recently said on X Chateau podcast that Rudy was a non payer to them. He said that Rudy later tried to consign wine to satisfy his debt, and they were uncomfortable with a substantial portion of the consignment and rejected it.

[Arvid_Rosengren]

COUNTERFEIT 1959 LA TÂCHE IN TODAY’s ACKER HONG KONG “HOLY GRAIL” SALE

I received a request from a colleague to review the first 288 lots of the Acker Hong Kong “Holy Grail” sale which began in Hong Kong at 8 pm local time on November 19 (i.e. about 20 minutes ago). When I did that I found one outrageous counterfeit – Lot 210 – Two bottles of purported 1959 DRC La Tâche. Almost everything about the labels on the bottle shown in the catalog is clearly wrong.

Thank you Don! Quick note: this sale is on eastern time, so there is still plenty of time to… not bid. Or maybe even get answers from Acker.

[John_Danza]

COUNTERFEIT 1959 LA TÂCHE IN TODAY’s ACKER HONG KONG “HOLY GRAIL” SALE

I received a request from a colleague to review the first 288 lots of the Acker Hong Kong “Holy Grail” sale which began in Hong Kong at 8 pm local time on November 19 (i.e. about 20 minutes ago). When I did that I found one outrageous counterfeit – Lot 210 – Two bottles of purported 1959 DRC La Tâche. Almost everything about the labels on the bottle shown in the catalog is clearly wrong.

Thank you Don! Quick note: this sale is on eastern time, so there is still plenty of time to… not bid. Or maybe even get answers from Acker.

The answer from Acker / John Kapon will be “there’s no extradition from Hong Kong”.

[Dennis_Borczon]

Let the Chinese buyers have em. They deserve a nice collection…

[Jim_Clary]

Facebook just told me that I might know a guy named Rudy Kurniawan and suggested I friend him. Some of you are already his Facebook friends. I am not, but some of the comments on this page or wall or whatever you call it are funny. “If you can’t make it, fake it.”

I got the same. Weird.

[Freek_S_u_i_j_v_e_r]

Great work as usual Don! But in this specific case, probably a quick look at the capsule would already have been enough to be “at least worried”…

[Wes_Barton]

IIRC, Rudy spent millions buying up trophy wines (raising the prices across the board) sharing them
to gain access to the “heavy lumber” crowd THEN started he started counterfeiting said trophy wines and selling them having already establishing himself as a great wine taster etc… So, he does know what “great old wine” tastes like and used that knowledge to sell his fake wines…

Yep. But, what he created were plausible fakes, taking tired mature lesser wines and livening them up with the right younger wines. That’s not the same as what his lawyer suggested he could do: creating wines that mimic the real thing, especially an optimal bottle. Sounds like marketing BS.

[Jurgen_Steinke]

The fraudsters can count on so many weaknesses of their clients.

1. Taste is an individual thing. Look at the tasting notes of critics about the same wine. They are very different in most cases.
2. Few people tasted 47 Lafleur, 45 DRC and so forth several times to have a clear picture and memory how the real thing tasted.
3. Rarity and price are sexy things so people are fascinated by the image of these old bottles that means objectivity is gone.

You can add several more factors. Somebody must make absurd mistakes like Ponsot wines that never existed as Kurniawan to have serious trouble. It is a shame that Kurniawan was the first and only person who ever got into jail due to faking wine in the US. All the gangsters in the wine business have a pretty easy life and that is something hard to believe and understand.