1985 - 2012 IT’S THE SPRING OF 1985, AND HARDY RODENSTOCK – A FLAMBOYANT GERMAN IN AN OVERSIZED COLLAR AND A TOUPEE THE COLOUR OF PALE CHAMPAGNE – IS SCRABBLING ABOUT IN A LONG-FORGOTTEN CELLAR SOME 25 METRES BELOW A PARISIAN SUBURB...

Story by Photography by JOSEPH BULLMORE WILSON HENNESSY

GENTLEMAN’S JOURNAL INVESTIGATION 123 By the time a bottle of Rodenstock’s Lafite more – on Rudy shortly), the FBI stormed his to hundreds of investors worldwide. – a handblown, near-blackened flute with no apartment like they might a drug baron or a His downfall had come at the hands of an “The FBI stormed markings on its body save for the name and 1970s BBC presenter. Their fervour is largely investigation by the FBI following a scattering playboy dealer a spidery ‘1787’ – had made its panic attack- justified. Through the various dark arts of of lawsuits filed by, among others, the inducing journey to Christie’s in , counterfeiting, piracy, patent infringement billionaire Bill Koch. Since the discovery in Rudy Kurniawan’s the mood in the wine community was near and copyright theft, wine is estimated to 2005 that vast swathes of his were delirious. The auction house catalogue of have cost the global industry $650 billion over likely fraudulent, Koch had begun litigating apartment like they December 5th, 1985, stated that it could the past two decades. And it isn’t Bill Koch or potential counterfeiters almost for sport. might a drug baron or ‘rightly be considered one of the world’s Christopher Forbes – those insured-to-the- ‘Your honour, I'm really sorry,’ Kurniawan greatest rarities.’ The colour was described as jowls billionaires who could, without flinching, whispered as he hung his head in the 1970s BBC presenter” ‘remarkably deep’ for the wine’s age, and the use a bottle of Pomerol to pad out sentencing room. The moment level in the neck was ‘exceptionally high.’ The the sangria – who are settling the bill: it’s you marked a near-perpendicular fall from grace bottle’s value, meanwhile, was listed simply as and I. The difference is made up at the bottom. for Kurniawan, who just a few years earlier ‘inestimable’. When, after some 120 seconds It is being slipped, while your back is turned, had been the ringmaster in a lavish circus of of febrile bidding, the gavel came down at into your next glass of gastropub shiraz. And connoisseurs and bon viveurs. An Indonesian 2:32pm, even that appraisal began to look that’s before you get to the cosmic inflation of immigrant who had arrived aged 16 on a (now movie studio magnates. His generosity and measly. The bottle went to Christopher Forbes fine wine prices that these artificial markets long-expired) student visa, Kurniawan became flamboyance soon meant he was at the centre – scion of the Forbes publishing dynasty – for bring about. The fraudsters have placed the enamoured with the Californian wine scene of the booming Californian wine party, while £105,000. It is still the most expensive bottle best bottles on the highest rung of the wine after a teenage epiphany at the rim of a glass his varied talents (a former business associate of wine ever sold. rack – and then kicked away the ladder. of Napa Valley red. Soon, he was embroiled claimed Kurniawan possessed a ‘photographic By the end of the decade, the rest of the Still, it’s only wine, after all. At least, that in three of the region’s most exclusive tasting aromatic memory’) positioned him as the most case had been split between a ‘Who’s Who’ was the argument made by Rudy Kurniawan’s clubs: one known as Burgwhores, another exciting wine dealer in the world. At a Santa of Bilderberg Group hopefuls and new-age lawyers as they mounted the defence for the called Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, and a third Monican party in 2007, Jackie Chan climbed robber barons. Finally, four bottles were biggest case of in the industry’s dubbed The Royal Order of the Purple Palate. onto a table – a jeroboam of Château Pétrus delivered – through the Bond villain-esque history. In August 2014, Kurniawan was Within a year or so, Kurniawan’s immediate clutched to his chest – and cried: ‘Rudy, you are machinations of the fine wine market – into the sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after he clique made up a boisterous carousel of the best!’ But not everyone was convinced. private cellar of one Bill Koch. Koch – whose sold millions of dollars worth of counterfeited Hollywood agents, venture capitalists and ‘I’d heard about this amazing young surname you may recognise from the bloodline Burgundy dealer over in the States: a man of Republican donors and oil lobbyists – had with a remarkable cellar,’ says Michael Egan. recently sold his share in the family energy ‘But even then, my Sotheby’s colleagues were TWO business for a healthy $4 billion, and had beginning to express their doubts.’ kitted out his Florida palazzo with a scattering Egan is an expert in fine and rare wines. of Picassos and Monets accordingly. His He now operates out of Bourdeaux, though for most prized artifact, however, was the case of 26 years he worked at Sotheby’s auction house Jefferson’s Lafite. These bottles, the billionaire in London, unearthing and appraising some of DAYS reasoned, held the potential to render him the the finest wine collections in the world. He was greatest private wine collector in the country. also the principle expert in the United States Unfortunately, they also held something else. vs. Rudy Kurniawan suit, an accolade that saw In his words? ‘Moose piss.’ him dubbed the world’s most famous ‘Wine Rodenstock received a phone call from ‘I used to bring people down here and brag Detective’ by the tabloids. ‘I know EARLIER,an aging business acquaintance about a discovery in a friend’s basement: and say, “You wanna see ’s what a genuine bottle should look like,’ his an open case of dusty bottles inscribed with an unknown monogram. wine?”’ he told a CBS reporter 25 years later. website states, in a precis that vastly undersells Acting on the cavalier impulses that had made him the darling of Europe’s ‘Well, now what I have to say is: “Come on down his autistic savant-esque eye for forgery. When epicurean elite, Rodenstock hopped on the first plane he could charter and see my fake Thomas Jefferson bottles!”’ we speak, he describes how most counterfeiters and rushed to the cellar in question. At first, he found only the usual Somehow, the international fine-wine have a kind of signature style that is their flotsam and jetsam of the fallen Parisian beau monde: half-bottles of sweet community – with its legion of Masters, eventual undoing: a microscopic poker tell that Alsatian wines with rotting corks; faded magnums of dubious Dordogne auctioneers and cynics – was duped by you or I would breeze over but that sets Egan’s reds. But then, at the back of the cavernous cellar, half obscured by a Rodenstock’s haul. How could this have sensors off like an air raid siren. hastily-installed buttress, he spotted a single bottle adorned with three happened? Where had the bottles come from? ‘Kurniawan’s tell was that the labels used magical letters: ‘Th.J’. The walls of the cellar seemed to swim before him. And how often did this type of thing occur? the same colours of ink, no matter who the ‘It was simply good luck,’ Hardy Rodenstock would later say to the In his search for answers, Bill Koch sparked a producer was. It seems highly unlikely that all gathered press of the western world. ‘It was like a lottery.’ But even the series of events that would change the industry the chateaux across an entire region would use grandest lotteries paled in comparison to this bounty. Rodenstock had forever – and create a new one in the process. Above: For 26 years the exact same hues of ink – to the microgram discovered ‘around 30 bottles’ from the private collection of Thomas Michael Egan worked at of pigment – in their lettering, doesn’t it?’ Sotheby’s, unearthing Jefferson: a name-droppers handbook of the Bordeaux region, with It’s hard to feel sorry for the trust fund wine collections. The At the trial, Egan was on the witness stand each case bearing the crest of a universally vaunted vineyard – Yquem, billionaire Bill Koch. And it’s harder still to principle expert in the for close to six hours. ‘My task was to explain Lafite, Mouton, Margaux. And of course, those heart-stopping initials: think of him as the victim of a serious crime. United States vs. Rudy to the jury what he’d done, and how he’d done Kurniawan suit, the ‘Th.J.’ That engraving dated the bottles to Jefferson’s first visit to , But wine fraud cases – like those of the papers dubbed him a it,’ he says. ‘Firstly, there were bottles that were when, as an American ambassador, he had become obsessed with what mysterious ‘Jefferson Bottles’, as they’ve since ‘Wine Detective’ decades out of date; utterly wrong.’ Kurniawan he would affectionately call the ‘restorative cordial’. Once the French been dubbed – are taken very seriously indeed had used hand blown glass when the vintage Left: One of the bottles Revolution erupted, Jefferson returned to the United States, but not by international crime fighting agencies. Hardy Rodenstock suggested the bottle should show the seam of before earmarking hundreds of cases of the finest Bordeaux for shipment In fact, when suspicions were raised over a unearthed was Chateau a mechanical press, and then filled up modern Mouton Rothschild back to , where he was to embark on a simultaneous career as shipment of Burgundy sold off by playboy 1945, as pictured here bottles when much older glass was expected. both Leader of the Free World and resident Georgetown wine bore. wine dealer Rudy Kurniawan (more – much on the right of the photo One of Kurniawan’s favourite methods was to

GENTLEMAN’S JOURNAL INVESTIGATION 125 it up enough,’ he says. ‘Alternatively we can with the FBI in San Francisco ‘to try and nail a in 2002 he was trying to sell me a case of 1940s them. But they’ll only buy it back at the price they sold it for, plus a small “Wine detective determine the chemical make-up of the glass. couple of these brokers once and for all.’ In just Pomerol: that doesn’t happen!’ she cries. ‘It’s percentage expense fee. They don’t get in any trouble of any sort!’ That, Maureen Downey has Each house would have a different proportion the half-hour we spend together, she casts the like going from riding a tricycle to driving a we agree, is bad enough. But what Downey tells me next is staggering. of a trace mineral – potassium, say – in its glass. entire wine industry in a disquieting new light. Lamborghini in a week!’ ‘In the meantime, the market for that label has moved on. So the original been undercover with A kind of chemical marker. The detection end ‘There’s a big problem here,’ Downey Like her comrade Michael Egan, Downey vendor, the fraudster, can just turn around and sell the now-openly fake of the game has become very sophisticated.’ begins. She believes that, when we hear about believes that the wine world has developed a wine on to someone else at the new, inflated market price.’ the FBI ‘to try and But it didn’t take a laboratory to prove that the larger-than-life characters of Rodenstock special atmosphere that breeds this kind of ‘Not one of the wines that are identified as fraudulent are destroyed,’ nail a couple of these Kurniawan was up to no good. and Kurniawan, it’s easy to think that the issue negligence. ‘If this was any other industry in she says. ‘In fact, they’re often simply re-sold at a higher value.’ In other ‘People had been hunting for Romanée- is confined to just a few bad grapes. ‘But the rot the world, this would never have happened,’ she words, the fraudsters get two bites of the apple, and profit from each one. brokers forever’” Conti for years, desperate for a haul like this,’ goes all the way down,’ she tells me. ‘Nobody says. ‘If a 26-year-old came up to you and tried More disquieting still is the revelation that her clients have to sign a Non Egan says. Romanée-Conti is the Grand Cru is immune.’ And the Kurniawan case alone to sell you 36 million dollars worth of jewels, Disclosure Agreement in order to receive their compensation: they can’t vineyard that was Kurniawan’s stock in trade: throws up some startling examples. you’d say, “Hold on, where are the receipts? even warn the market that their former case of wine isn’t what it says it at the height of his fame, the wine brokers of ‘In January 2009 I was standing at a Napa How did you get your hands on these?”’ is. ‘Wine fraud is an incredibly lucrative business. And it is very low risk.’ LA would refer to him affectionately as ‘Dr. Valley convention, surrounded by Masters of She believes that the market was simply too The San Franciscan detective admits that it’s easy to dismiss rackets Conti’. ‘And then this young man would go Wine [the MW is the grandest qualification in entranced by the glittering gems on offer to like this as simply ‘a rich man’s scourge’ – when we spoke, she was take genuine empty bottles from fine-dining away, and time and time again he’d come back the industry: there are only 341 living Masters care. ‘Eventually, Rudy faxed me a fax of a fax of handling a consignment of 271 bottles of wine with an average bottle restaurants around the world, and then re-fill with precisely what his buyer was looking for!’ of Wine in the world] and I was telling Charles a fax of something in Chinese,’ she adds. ‘That’s value of $40,000 – but the trickle down is far from palatable. ‘What them with his own alchemical blend of lesser ‘Come on,’ cries Maureen Downey. ‘What Curtis [a Master of Wine and the former Head not provenance. But he soon found another they’ve really done is given rise to higher priced wine,’ she says. ‘The crazy . ‘He’d stamped each cork by hand with are the odds of that?’ The other Premier Cru of Wine for Christie’s in both the US and Asia] buyer. And then another.’ By the time the FBI Bordeaux prices you see on the high street are just a reflection of the crazy a brand he’d made,’ Egan remembers. ‘But it in the rarefied appellation of wine detectives, that he shouldn’t sell Rudy’s wines,’ she says. raided Kurniawan’s home in March 2012, he Bordeaux prices that Rudy whipped up at auction. They pumped it up – just looked off: too roughly done, perhaps.’ Downey is a militant campaigner against ‘And he said, “Until Rudy is found guilty, his offloaded $100 million in counterfeited wines. and it’s never come down.’ Egan deploys a panoply of technical and vinous dishonesty of any sort. If Egan is the wine is fair game.”’ Philip Moulin, the Quality and Authentication Manager at Berry intuitive methods to determine the validity of a gentlemanly Sherlock Holmes of the industry, Downey, who runs a wine advisory called Bros. & Rudd, spots another threat among the Kurniawan fallout. ‘As given bottle of wine. ‘It can go from a magnifying then Downey is its disenfranchised Philip Chai Consulting in San Francisco, is appalled soon as you start selling something that’s not what it purports to be, glass to a digital microscope connected to a PC. Marlowe: a rugged, neo-noir sleuth who’s seen at just how blind the Californian wine scene you get into a public health issue,’ he says, nodding to the Austrian wine Even a very well forged digital reproduction just how dirty things can get. When I speak to was to Kurniawan’s forgeries. ‘In 2001, he was scandal of 1985 that saw almost 36 million bottles of wine contaminated of a label will begin to pixelate if you blow her, she tells me that she’s just been undercover drinking $40 Californian cabernet. And then ‘NOBODY DIED. with an anti-freeze agent. ‘And that’s just the one we caught.’ ‘I have bottles in Switzerland with glitter in the sediment: what else is in there!’ cries Downey, though things don’t really hit home until she NOBODY LOST tells me that even the Provencal Miraval Rosé – the clear-glassed, King’s Road favourite backed by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie – is being targeted by forgers in their droves. THEIR SAVINGS. There are splashes of hope – Egan points to Bordeaux University’s vast new library of genuine wine bottles that aim to show up the fakes; Moulin tells me about the ingenious introduction of chemical markers into the NOBODY LOST wine itself; Downey says she’s putting on seminars for those wanting to join her guerilla force – but the unsavoury truth is that, more often than not, fraud of this kind is good business. ‘The Institute of Masters of Wine; THEIR JOB.’ That was the closing the auction houses of the world; most of the global wine press: they’re all statement that Kurniawan’s lawyers put forth knowingly perpetrating a lie,’ Downey tells me. ‘And the bad guys aren’t in a final bid for leniency. The federal judge at being chased from the building: they’re being celebrated as rock stars.’ the Manhattan courthouse didn’t buy that line ‘Fraud succeeds because of one thing: greed,’ Moulin tells me. ‘As long for a second. And neither, as it happens, did as there’s plenty of that in the world, the wine detectives will be on call.’ Michael Egan or Maureen Downey. ‘Small boutique dealers who focus solely Before we say goodbye, I ask Michael Egan how he thinks fraudsters like on Bordeaux are going out of business all the Kurniawan were allowed to get away with it for so long. ‘There’s a huge time: people simply don’t trust the labels of capacity in the wine world for wishful thinking,’ he says at length. ‘That’s these older wines any more,’ says Egan. ‘More the cachet of wine: it can store for decades.’ and more, my clients are wanting to buy newer ‘At Sotheby’s, we were discovering vast collections bricked up below Above: The business cards of playboy wine dealer Rudy Kurniawanold, wines with assured provenances. Kurniawan these grand houses during the war. We all have this constant hope who sold millions of dollars worth wasn’t just defrauding his customers – he was that more of those hauls will be unearthed, and that stories like Hardy of counterfeited wines to hundreds prejudicing the producers of these great wines. Rodenstock’s cellar will be proved true. Sometimes they are.’ Egan sounds of investors worldwide The consequences could be catastrophic.’ animated; excitable almost. ‘At all times, there is this drop of truth among Right: Maureen Downey, who runs a Downey’s view is that the consequences of the concoction.’ And then, in the levelled understatement that is the wine advisory called Chai Consulting in San Francisco, believes the industry this fraud run deeper than even those ancient detective’s stock in trade, he adds, ‘And that complicates matters.’ • should be doing more to combat fraud cellars. As far as she is concerned, these high profile arrests haven’t rid the wine world of its tumour: they’ve simply provoked it to metastasize. ‘An entire cottage industry has developed,’ she explains. ‘Say, for example, my client discovers that the wine they bought five years ago is counterfeited. And then I work to convince the original seller to buy it back from

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