I can’t comment on how much money Rudy started with. However, he certainly bilked a lot of people out of millions and sent it offshore. He was clearly part of a criminal syndicate that designated him as the fall guy when the jig was up, and he was probably in agreement on that role. He spends time in the joint and then goes back to the people that he sent the millions to. Now he’ll get a wine job in his country and make more fakes.
I wonder how much was clawed back by Acker, et al, to appease customers. He also owed them and other places money for wines he bought, and apparently was constantly hard up for cash, got sued by contractors for a home he was renovating, and got his credit card declined quite often at the end. I’m sure he did ship money offshore, and I believe he did not act alone, although I don’t think all the involved parties are outside the US.
How much wine do you suppose auction houses, esp Acker, quietly took back from angry bidders? Unless they are public companies, who is going to see that item in their books? He may have netted a lot less than people think.
Except for the con artist who committed your avatar!
(Sorry, I’m sure you’re a super guy, but I couldn’t help it.)
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Kurniawan ordered expensive wines in fancy restaurants and took the empties to refill them. So he had drunk the real stuff. And he was a part of the 12 angry men who brought rare bottles to tastings. So he knew how a real Romaneé Conti tastes.
The human palate is not an exact instrument. It is really difficult to detect a fake bottle as long as the fake is well made. Sure – if somebody is so stupid to fill some plonk in a fine Burgundy or Bordeaux it will be easy to realize the fraud. But if the refilled wine is good and from the same age it is pretty demanding.
I had the pleasure to taste blind with some top tasters and critics for years. You have to know that even winemakers had trouble to find out their own wine in blind tastings. That tells you how difficult it is in reality.
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I wish this thread wasn’t 183 pages long because somewhere, way back, were the ingredients (Wines and vintages) used to fake the First Growths. I’d be interested to try a few of those if they taste way above their cost blended together.
Pretty easy when using the search in thread function: https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/search.php?keywords=Recipe&t=61172&sf=msgonly
I freaking loved The Gates! My wife and I flew to NYC Saturday, had dinner at one of Boulud’s restos (Cafe Boulud, in the original Daniel location) the first night, went out the next day and walked around the park for hours, ate Indian food downtown that evening, and flew home Monday morning about 40 hours after we flew in. The Gates was the sole purpose of the trip, and it was no disappointment at all, even when our room with a view of Central Park lost the view because an epic storm made visibility basically zero. The whole city just seemed to be enraptured. My wife lived in Brooklyn many years, went to advanced Hebrew school on the UWS and grad school downtown, and she was just as amazed by it. If Christo was a con man, he’s the only one who ever took me in.
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From someone who should know, Rudi was seen about town, of course enjoying a glass of wine or two, in Singapore in the last few days…
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Utterly mesmerizing; I saw them twice, once with a thin covering of snow, and once under a pale winter sun with the park a dusty brown. It was a hard to resist a huge grin as I walked through it.
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But we digress…
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Gates? In New York? Oh, you mean these:
Only in New York - Baseball, in the snow, in the middle of an art exhibit. Look for the baseball.
Rebecca and my mother:
More gates:
But it’s all Gates under the Bridge because they’re gone.
Friends are leaving to live in Singapore for a couple years, leaving late this month. I’ll tell them to be on the lookout, and I will go pester him when I visit them. LOL
It’s really annoying that he gets to enjoy wine now, but what price did all the fraudsters who brought us the last financial meltdown pay? What price do despoilers of the environment play?
wonder if he’ll run into Ray Walker hustling his latest bourbon? Han not heard from Ray in awhile.
Me neither, Dennis - but talking of things associated to Ray - a winemaker in the Hautes Côtes de Beaune told me this week that he’d picked up an open-top wooden fermenter from a near neighbour and because it needed a bit of work he contacted the manufacturer. They asked if there was a metal plate on the bottom with a serial-number and if so, they would know who had originally ordered the tank. Surprise - someone who used to work out of a place in Nuits…
Having read through the whole thread the last week or two (whew… that took a while), the only outstanding thread that I remember that hasn’t been followed up in a while was regarding Royal Wine Merchants. A couple years ago Don reached out to the counsel of Koch to let him know that Royal wasn’t abiding by their settlement agreement. Just checked and looks like they still aren’t as they have numerous bottles over $2500 for sale. Don C: Did anyone from Koch’s camp ever get back to you?
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Mike:
Thank you for the reminder to check the Royal Wine Merchants website, and YES, ROYAL WINE MERCHANTS IS ONCE AGAIN FACIALLY VIOLATING THE PERMANENT INJUNCTION. The injunction permanently bars Royal Wine Merchants from selling any bottles from vintages prior to 1976 or any wines for more than $2,500 per 750 ml.
There are currently at least 13 different wines offered on the website which are older than the 1976 vintage and therefore directly violate the Federal injunction:
1970 La Mission Haut Brion 5L
1975 L’Evangile
1971 Pierre Gelin Chambertin Clos de Beze
1970 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle
1975 Bondi Santi Brunello Riserva
1964 Henriques & Henriques Sercal Vintage Madeira
1975 Oremis Tokay Essencia
1975 Ch. Coutet Barsac
1961 Taylor Fladgate Very Old Single Harvest Porto Limited Edition
1971 Ch. Grillet Cuvee Renaissance
1973 Delagrange Bachelet Criots Batard Montrachet
1970 Taylor Fladgate Single Harvest Tawny Port
1971 Audibert and Delas Hermitage Cuvee Marquisse Tourette
I stopped when I got down to $200 per bottle, so it might be possible they have some additional pre-1976 wines on their website that I haven’t picked up.
In answer to your question, I did not receive any response from Bill Koch’s camp to my original alert, though the people that Bill had had hired to deal with the counterfeiting have all moved on to other things. I have notified Mr. Koch’s former right hand advisor about the ongoing violations.
There was also a very obvious counterfeit 1976 Grivelet Bonnes Mares 4.5L. All 1976 Grivelet grand crus imported to the US are counterfeit according to the first SDNY counterfeiting case back in 1980 that has been discussed in the thread a couple of times.https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3036528#p3036528 I’m really amazed when any merchant or auction house tries to sell that crap.
Counterfeit 1976 Grivelet Offered by Royal Wine Merchants
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Thanks for the quick response Don. I know others on this site generally and in this thread specifically have had longer to ‘come to terms’ with how things shook out, I’m amazed at how clean the bad actors in this saga came out. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but a couple weeks ago was my first time hearing about any of this as I’m nowhere near these wines. Most of my wines are more in the $40-$80 range and pretty much all of my wine comes directly from US wineries, so I’m probably pretty safe in that regard, but was eye-opening nonetheless. I’m just as active (if not more) with beer, which hasn’t had much of a counterfeiting issue, but it hasn’t been completely clean either. As crazy as it sounds, there’s counterfeit high-end beer out there as well… Secondary there tops out in the $200-$300 range mostly though, so even then the problem isn’t nearly as widespread.
The Royal Bank of Scotland paid $10.4 billion to the US SEC and FHFA. 
Allen Meadows also got some free advertising for his Burgundy reviews. 
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Happy to see that the Bank of Scotland is paying for the crimes of every despoiler of the environment, every ratings agency that gave AAA to junk mortgages, and the guy who cut me off in traffic just now. And such a generous payment, as well.
Reminds me of the joke “Any fool can make DRC wine using DRC grapes, but it takes talent to make it without. “.
(And apologies, and thanks, if it was someone on this board who coined it)