I was also thinking of Jay McInerney, the novelist, who I believe was included in some of the NY tastings and gushed about them in print.
New “short history of wine fraud” book by Rebecca Gibb MW coming soon. Very short excerpt, and discount offer, posted on Vinous:
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Thanks for posting! I missed that on Vinous. 30% off for vinous members.
Interesting to see Kapon/ Acker now rearing their heads up in Singapore, with their first ever auction in the city. I wonder if he caught up with Rudy while he was there ? .
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Interesting to see Kapon/ Acker now rearing their heads up in Singapore, with their first ever auction in the city. I wonder if he caught up with Rudy while he was there ? .
Unless Rudy is holding a grudge from the fact that he went to prison and Kapon didn’t, I think you can count on that.
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Kapon might want to see if Rudy is good for the $10 million the store said in a lawsuit that he owed it for refunds it was forced to give when buyers rejected Rudy’s fakes. Acker advanced millions to Rudy before the auctions based on anticipated sales, but guaranteed the wines and had to make good on those guarantees.
I am not sure if Kapon still owns Acker. I know he sold some if not all, but the debt is I am sure a factor in the sale.
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Mr. Kapon was still listed as Chairman of Acker in the latest catalog for the first Acker sale in Singapore.
On John’s point, the $10 million debt was the subject of a default judgment in 2008. Rudy subsequently gave Acker a security interest on his wine, art work, etc. Between 2008 and 2014, Acker got more than $7 million of that debt paid back. Acker filed a post-conviction Petition with the Southern District of New York in September of 2014, which stated that the debt and accrued interest at that point was down to $3,812,062.18. Subsequent to that date I recall that Acker received additional payments from the government with respect to that debt, from the sale of Rudy’s assets (wine, cars, his interest in the Domaine Montille partnership, etc) but I do not presently know the total additional amount received.
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Reading Laurent Ponsot’s book “FBI - Fausses Bouteilles Investigation” right now. Fascinating read.
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I think they sold control of the Hong Kong auction operation, but I think he was mentioned in the case where the NY state liquor authorities fined the store $200,000 for selling fake Pappy bourbon. That’s consistent with what Don says.
Very interesting. I hadn’t realized that they’d managed to collect. So Acker was a victim. It sounds like they managed to get to the head of the line.
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John_Morris
Don_Cornwell
On John’s point, the $10 million debt was the subject of a default judgment in 2008. Rudy subsequently gave Acker a security interest on his wine, art work, etc. Between 2008 and 2014, Acker got more than $7 million of that debt paid back. Acker filed a post-conviction Petition with the Southern District of New York in September of 2014, which stated that the debt and accrued interest at that point was down to $3,812,062.18. Subsequent to that date I recall that Acker received additional payments from the government with respect to that debt, from the sale of Rudy’s assets (wine, cars, his interest in the Domaine Montille partnership, etc) but I do not presently know the total additional amount received.
Very interesting. I hadn’t realized that they’d managed to collect. So Acker was a victim. It sounds like they managed to get to the head of the line.
Yes, Acker got to the head of the line because they had a stipulated default judgment in New York state court.
Acker retained a major law firm to represent them, who filed a Petition with the criminal court where Rudy was convicted (Southern District of New York) claiming that they should be paid before any other restitution claim because of the prior state court judgment. I found this to be an interesting and from my perspective problematic argument. Rudy’s conviction was based principally on selling counterfeit wines through Acker in 2006 and 2008 (as well as some counterfeits in London in 2012 and sales of lots of counterfeit wines in private sales). Acker entered into a stipulation for entry of judgment against Rudy in 2008, which was mostly for the refunds Acker had to shell out after millions in refunds paid out by Acker from Cellar I and Cellar II and some following the April 2008 (Ponsot) auction. Why should Acker, which was an (unindicted) co-conspirator, obtain payment ahead of the people who were defrauded by Rudy?
In theory, any of the other defrauded victims who filed claims for restitution, including Bill Koch, could have objected. But this would have required the expenditure of significant attorney’s fees and likely a contested proceeding with Acker that could have gotten very expensive and ugly. Moreover, success was by no means assured.
Unfortunately, the government elected not to prosecute Acker, although this thread has detailed in the past that there appeared to be ample evidence to do so.
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I think the post war year wines and problems getting bottles even as late as the early fifties is highlighted here. I bought the wines, and apparently the provenance is extremely good.
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1949 with 3 bottle shapes?
I was looking through an auction site and saw this
Mark
You are a brave buyer. It appears from the labels that these bottles were all supposedly bottled by a negociant. It might be possible that a negociant in 1949 had to re use bottles, but I would be extremely skeptical about these. Even if authentic, its wine that was put into used bottles by some negociant, who couldn’t even afford the necessities of the trade at that time - in 1951. Maybe you will be lucky.
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I wonder is something like the ink dating touted here would be feasible?
I just found this group randomly via google because I was wondering whether modern ink could be dated. Apparently it can.
Edit to say I sent them a general inquiry to see if they thought the process possible.
Imagine if the auction house cut a small piece of the label, mailed it off for analysis and when it comes back clean clearly one’s wine gains appreciably more confidence with the certification. Maybe it only makes sense for a certain dollar of wine due to costs but seems like a business (if it would work) to me.
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I see 4, but maybe my eyes are deceiving me? I’d love to hear the backstory from Mark about the provenance with such obvious differences. He’s obviously no rookie so it must be convincing.
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Its a well known wine berserkers fact that mark loses all reason when he sees chateau magdelaine.
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It is a combination of the two. I have bought from the vendor, a private client, through a merchant I trust several times, and the wines have been superb. I understand that the vendor has had the wine for many years, and frankly who is going to fake Magdelaine with the obvious bottle variation and a Negociant bottling at that. I have had a couple of bottles from the Negociant which have been good including a Latour a Pomerol from the 1940s.
But Henry is right. Although I am skeptical generally but may have blinkers with Magdelaine. Two other factors; the final cost was relatively cheap and I can return if I open a bottle and am not happy, and the merchant will refund the lot including the open bottle.