WEBVTT - How Wine Fraud Works 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.000 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from the house stuff 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:13.080 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.360 Josh Clark. There's Child's w Chuck Bryant, and No little 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.840 Bit even is stuff you should Know. Man, that coffee 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.000 smells good? You want something? Have a sip? No, I'm fine, 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.239 but it's just I just love that smells so nice, 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.000 even though I don't drink much coffee. Oh yeah, I'm 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.640 with you. You know, it's just a delicious smell. Sometimes 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.000 I'll go to a department store and just walk through 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:38.720 the fragrant aisle and just smell the coffee samples they have. Well, 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:40.000 I thought you were gonna say you got through the 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:44.440 lingerie and just brush up against things after the coffee. 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.440 So after the coffee sniffing is done and I can't 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:54.840 smell anything anymore, right, How are you? Thanks for outing me? Man? 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.880 It's creepy. Yeah, you know, I'm sure there's weirdos out 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.320 there who do that. Are you kidding me? There's probably 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:07.640 websites dedicated to it. Yeah, I'm fine. Good. Good? Do 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.080 you like wine? I love wine? How do you know, 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:12.920 Chuck that the wine you're drinking, it's actually the wine 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:19.880 you're thinking is because nobody bothers to fraudently rip off 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:26.160 bottle of one. Not true. Yeah, there's a famous issue 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:31.399 in the world of wine fraud. Watch people okay um 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.959 from Tesco, which is I think it's just a straight 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.920 up like supermarket Kim in Britain, I saw that. Actually, yeah, 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.200 you're right, And there was a louis Ja dough which 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.840 normally goes for about fifteen pounds. It was selling on 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.080 sale for five pounds. That's a good deal. But one 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.880 of the guys who purchased it contacted some people who 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.240 are into wine and said, I think this is phony 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.560 because the label looks like it's a photo copy. So 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:57.800 somebody was doing knock off louis Ja dough which normally 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.800 goes for not that much, and old at t Tesco, 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:02.960 who was in turn selling it. And this is a 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.520 huge thing. Man. There's a big, big debate even still 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:11.400 and just how widespread wine fraud is. And it's really 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.120 difficult to get to the bottom of because there's so 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.239 many people who have their fingers in this fraudulent pot, 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:22.880 whether wittingly or unwittingly, in either way, are unwilling to 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.160 admit that it's as extensive as it is, or the 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.600 people who are burned are making a bigger deal out 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.280 of it than they are than it really is, because 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.320 they have the money in the context to get CBS 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.520 to do a story on how they got burned by 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.320 buying some fake wine. So it's not entirely clear how 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.160 widespread it is. But there have been some really great, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:52.440 very famous but almost proven stories of outright wine fraud. 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.720 But it's a pretty new phenomenon. Uh. Well, if you 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.200 think ancient Roman is pretty new, let's hear it man. 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.720 Well that's I mean there ever since there was wine, 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:05.360 people were making fake wine or trumping it up as 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.640 something other than it was. So the newer practice, like 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.000 you can divide it into two things. There was an 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.760 ancient room they were doing stuff like this and adding 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.280 like lead to wine to sweeten it while they were 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:22.279 killing people. Uh. But then there's the new practice of like, hey, 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.720 this is a Thomas Jefferson bottle of wine and you 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.120 con bided a Christie's auction for a hundred thousand dollars 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.360 and it's really not that at all. Do you remember 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.120 back in the eighties, Um, I think reu Needy was 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.520 adding like when you wipe a fluid or something. Yeah, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.120 it was at the very least an urban legend. More recently, 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.040 there was something added to wine to make it sweeter 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.840 that was really bad for you. But I don't know, 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:47.880 I can't confirm if it was that case or not. 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.920 This was specifically reu Needy in the eighties. And it again, 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:52.720 it could have just been an urban legend because at 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:56.680 the same time that there were spiders eggs in bubble yum. 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:58.520 You know, yeah, there was a lot of like a 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.720 consumer uh panic. I think yeah, it was a golden 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:06.320 age for urban legends. Yeah, agreed. Uh. And you know what, 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.760 we need to do one on wine period. Yes, this 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.160 is so us. Yeah, we'll do episodes on everything but 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.320 the actual thing, and then we'll finally get to the thing. Uh. 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.680 And we could also probably do a completely separate podcast 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:26.200 on wine tasting, because man, that's a really bitter pill, 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.320 because there are some people who say there really is 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.960 no difference in these wines, and there have been numerous 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.599 occasions over the years where jerks have set up wine 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:43.400 tasters to fail by just switching out wines and saying 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.800 this is a really nice bot or what's really crappy, 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:47.960 and they say whoa, this is lovely. The tannons are 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:50.080 really coming in. It's jammie and full, and they're like, 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:54.160 you're drinking too buck chuck um stuff that. It's a 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.000 big bone of contention with wine drinkers and also people 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.640 who like to poop poo that and say it's all 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:02.760 subjective and you're all just snooty and either really is 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.320 no difference, but there really is a difference. Well, okay, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.440 so there is a like you say, there's there's a 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.360 big debate over that, right, um, But if you if 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:17.960 you dive into the world of high end vintage wine collecting, 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.880 it is very um. It's like an aura borus, right, 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.760 that snake that eats its own tail, in that the 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:31.040 people who are in charge of judging whether something's real 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:36.359 or not are basing that on their previous experiences, which 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.280 may or may not have been an experience with a 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.800 fraudulent wine. So even if you can tell the difference, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:48.040 if you've only been exposed to, say, fraudulent eighteen century wine, 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.680 then when you are asked to judge a bottle of 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.839 like eighteenth century wine, you're gonna compare it to that, 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.200 And if it's ultimately coming from the same counterfeitter. You 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:00.440 will be like, yes, this is the real thing, because 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.000 I've had that before and it tastes like that. Well yeah, 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:08.760 and here's the other thing. Is there there is vintage, 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:14.560 uh appropriately aged wine that is tastes great because it 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.599 has aged in such a way. And then there are 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:21.159 these super old bottles that apparently it tastes like canned 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.479 asparagus is the note that it brings out, And these 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.839 don't even taste that good. It's just the fact that 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.200 you can own it and show people. You don't even 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.640 drink it. In most cases, you don't drink at Jefferson wine. 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.760 You have it in your collection. So some say, look 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.680 at my collection. Exactly. That's the whole point a lot 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.240 of people are. For a lot of people, that's the 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.679 whole point. It's just own this bottle. It's like owning 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:46.600 a piece of Thomas Jefferson and you get to show 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:51.640 off and and tell people how great you are. Right exactly. So, Um, 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:54.440 that's how a lot of wine counterfeiting has gotten away 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.000 with because the people are never going to open the wine. 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.560 So whatever tampering you did with the the seal is 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.440 never going to be discovered. Um, they're never gonna taste 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.240 the wine inside, so it could be two buck chalk 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:09.920 or whatever. Won't see the cork. Yeah. Um, and they're 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.840 just they're just happy to have this thing and their 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.520 status to be elevated to the point where they don't 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.000 really want to know if it's a counterfeit, so long 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.360 as they can walk around and tell people. This is 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.240 Thomas Jefferson. Right, Well, we should go ahead and start 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.160 talking about Bill Coke. He is uh, one of the 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.520 other brothers. He is not Charles or David Coke of 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:40.000 the famous uh Republican Coke brothers, fame billionaire supporters of 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:45.840 the Republican Party. Yeah. Yeah, sure, she's saying that's like 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.480 the nicest way to describe them. Yeah, it is. Uh. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.400 He is the brother, one of the brothers who got 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.840 out along with another brother. Um, but not another brother 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:59.200 from another mother. No, they are the same mother, right right, Okay, Yeah, 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.000 he got out of the family business and said, you 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.400 know what, um, a billionaire, I'm gonna what I'm gonna 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.800 do is I'm gonna start collecting really rare and expensive things. Um. 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.800 One thing he has is a gun collection. He owns 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.960 Custer's rifle, Billy the Kid's pistol. Does he he owns 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.520 the gun that killed Jesse James. Oh, I'm sorry, is 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.800 Jesse James Pistol? And that gun and that what was 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:27.080 his name? Robert Ford? Yeah? And that was a good movie. 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:32.559 Boy was it really good? Beautifully shot as well Wide 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:34.800 Rupe's rifle, Doc Holiday's rifle. He has a lot of 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.280 vintage guns. He has a lot of very famous works 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:44.080 of art like original Picassos and monaise As exactly. He 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.520 sounds like a big sucker to me. And he also 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.760 owns uh as this article says several hundred bottles of 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.840 what he calls moose piss. Yeah, that's what he calls it. 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.720 He said. He Well, he's saying that for all he knows. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:02.520 That's what's inside. He got duped very famously, many many times. Yeah, 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.800 and he has had many many lawsuits over the years 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.400 that have come out. This guy loves suing people. He 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.720 does what he calls dropping subpoena is on people. Yeah, 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.319 he sues people almost recreationally. He drops the subpoena on 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:19.320 their head. Yeah, what a guy. So he um he 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.840 Bill Coke again very famously, he's probably the most famous 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:29.320 victim of wine fraud. M because he sues everybody he 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.839 possibly can who may or may not have sold them 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.160 a fake. Really takes it personally, and he really goes 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.200 after people. UM. And he did a lot of media 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.320 about this too, so he's very famous for this. UM. 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.640 And he brought in some wine experts and said, here 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:48.200 are thirty thousand, forty thousand bottles of wine that I 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.880 have in my sellers. How many are fake? And they 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:54.600 just took a random sample of three tho bottles. He 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:59.200 kidding me, No, they said exactly, They're like, we'll bill 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.720 you for this. UM. They took a random sample of 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:06.720 three thousand bottles and it yielded a hundred and thirty fakes. 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.320 So I mean he has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:16.439 by by extension of fake bottles of wine in his cellar. 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.880 And that was actually, that's about on par with what 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:27.760 the average not necessarily uninitiated or uneducated wine buyer, but 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:33.960 fervent vintage wine buyer would have that about four million 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.520 dollars seller, about a million of it will be on fakes. Yeah, 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.160 and he supposedly spent close to five million dollars on 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:45.800 fake wine over the past quarter century, UM, including some 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.560 of those Jefferson's that we'll talk about. Uh and a 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.400 lot of this wine came from a man named Rudy 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:57.280 Uh crnia Oh that's good stuff. It's even better than 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:01.719 I had in my head, you crniawan. I like that, 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.960 I think. And this guy was one of the most 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.320 famous um really alongside another guy that we'll talk about, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:15.440 one of the most famous wine fraud discs, fraudster, fraudster, counterfeitters, 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.680 counterfeitters of all time um And he was sentenced to 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.960 ten years in prison and supposedly was to pay close 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.800 to fifty million dollars in damages, which is easily what 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:30.160 he made by selling fake wine. In two sales in 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.800 two thousand and six, he made thirty six million dollars 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.400 selling fake wine. What a jerk. And it's easy to 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.600 sit back. And the fence team even used this in 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:46.160 court to say, ah, these are rich guys, like no harm, 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.160 no foul, who cares very if you're ripping off the rich. 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.600 And I even found myself kind of thinking that. But 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.000 at the end of the day, who it's wrong, it's wrong, 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:57.960 it's wrong. Sure, I mean, like I wouldn't do it. 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.040 I wouldn't sell a counterfeit bottle of wine. Yeah, it's wrong, 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:04.439 it's illegal, and it's it's gross. And just because you're 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.320 ripping off the rich, it's not like he's Robin Hood 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.400 and giving that then to the poor. You know he was. 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:13.559 I didn't have the idea that he was doing that. 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.920 Plus Um, Dave Rugs, who wrote this, made this point, 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:22.520 but I take issue with it that ultimately vintage counterfeit 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:28.160 wine fraud affects all wine drinkers because that stuff trickles down. 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.640 I don't think that's true because from reading this um. 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.720 There were two really great long form articles that this 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.600 article was partially based on. One was in The New 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.760 Yorker and one was on Vanity Fair, and both of 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:45.040 them were totally worth reading. UM. But just from reading 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.440 those you get the impression that those are two very 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.280 different worlds. That the world of like just regular wine 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:58.760 appreciation and vintage wine collection form of ven diagram that 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.880 just barely overlaps, and that one really does not affect 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.920 the economy the economics of the other. So if there's 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.559 a bunch of counterfeit stuff going on in the vintage 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.160 wine world, it probably wouldn't drive up prices for the 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.800 wine that you're buying that's you know, ten years old tops. 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.480 So I don't think that that's necessarily true. His point 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.640 that we all shoulder the burden that counterfeiters do because 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.680 these two worlds are so divorced. But even still, like 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.400 if you were a people are losing money and reputations 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.840 are being built up and lost. You know, I get that. 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:36.640 All right, Well, let's take a little break and we'll 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.040 come back and uh, we'll talk about the two ways 0:13:39.520 --> 0:14:00.199 that you can generally go about trying to fake a wine. 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:07.199 All right, we're back, We're drunk on wine. I wish 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:14.840 what's your favorite wine? Uh? My favorite wines are big 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:20.880 bodied California cabernets generally, like not a specific like wine maker. 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.600 If that's what you're asking, I'm not gonna like, yeah, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.800 there's no wrong answer. Yeah no, Well that was that 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.040 funny because it made me think of fat bottom girls, 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:34.160 that Queen song big bodied California Ca. Yeah, it just 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.240 potts in my head and I laughed like a goon. Yeah, 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:41.600 I'm like really full bodied wines, zimpandels and cabernets. Yeah, 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.400 I think California is just they're doing it right. You know, 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.600 they say petitzeras the Rodney danger field of the wine world. 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.720 I've heard that. So if you're gonna go about faking 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.800 a wine, um, you uh, there are two things you 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:56.960 can do. You can either fake the wine inside a 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.960 real bottle or you can fake the bottle real wine. Yeah, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.680 and it's all real wine. You know, it's different vintage 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:06.840 maybe yeah, but like it could be like a really 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:12.600 nice seven wine that you say it's actually from nineteen 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.480 fourteen or even one. I mean, like it could be 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.200 within a couple of years. It just depends on on 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.160 whether it was a good year or if the if 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.240 there's a scarcity of it, that kind of stuff. And 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.840 actually Bill Cook makes a pretty good point. His whole 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.600 thing is he wants to have I think a hundred 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.320 and fifty years of Lafitte or some some house, like 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:39.479 every single vintage that they released of every single variety 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:41.760 over the course of a hundred and fifty years, which 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.200 is extremely ambitious. And he said it's easy to get 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.240 the really prized ones because those are the ones that 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.760 like people saved in all that. He said, it's the 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.280 mediocre years that are old that nobody bothered to say 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.840 this drank and threw away the bottle or just didn't 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.080 keep it. Those are the ones that he has the 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.760 most trouble. Fine, or they did skeet shooting. They just 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.600 had the servants stowed up in the air and they 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:08.120 shot him with shotguns. That's what they do. Richie Riches, Uh, well, 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.920 you make a good point too, because Colonie Allen, although 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:13.720 he dealt in the super high echelon, he would also 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.560 take a two bottle of wine and fake it to 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.840 be like a thousand dollar bottle. Yeah, he did it 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.400 both ways. He would he would take out, he would 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:25.080 take an old bottle, legitimate real bottle, put in his 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.960 own mix of wine and cork it again and and 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.360 make it look like it had never been open. Or 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.280 like you said, he would take just say, a forty 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.040 seven Lafitte and mess with the label to make it 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:38.960 look like a forty one Lafitte, which would be worth 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.280 ten times that what the forty seven Lafitte would be worth. Right, 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.320 And clearly, I also want to point out Lafitte is 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.880 obviously the only fancy wine that I'm familiar with, because 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.800 that's my go too. So if you guys are out 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:54.760 there and you're getting the impression that I know what 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.080 I'm talking about as far as wine goes, you have 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.680 been duped. Well, you're not a big wine guy. You're 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.880 on sortis such, I like wine. I'm I'm definitely not 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:07.600 a wine guy exactly. Yeah. Uh, and I'm that wine 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.720 guy either. I'm I'm at the very I'm wine guy 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.440 in the brest sense of the word. I like really 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:18.879 good wines. I like going to wineries. But I'm certainly 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.600 no like. I'm not saying I have some amazing palette. 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.320 I can't pick out vanilla notes and things like that. 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.320 I'm just like, man, this tastes really good for up 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.679 bottle of it. And I tend to fall into that 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.680 camp where I'm certain that there are people out there, 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:37.879 literal tastemakers who can tell the difference between wine and 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:39.919 I've had wine that I didn't like before, I've had 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.560 wine that I do like. Um, But I fall into 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.560 the camp where I'm ultimately like, it's it's whatever you appreciate. 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:50.479 It's no hierarchy, there doesn't need to be. Um. You know, 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.320 a two thousand dollar bottle is not necessarily going to 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.960 taste as good as a twenty dollar bottle. That that 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:02.119 you the whole thing is just about individual enjoyment, and 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.439 he kind of snobbery associated with it to me just 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.360 misses the point. Yeah, here's my deal is, I can 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.480 really tell the difference between what I would consider cheap 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.840 wine and like a decent bottle or a good bottle. 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.800 But that's where my taste level max is out. I 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:23.320 can't tell the difference between a two bottle and at bottle, 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.159 But if you gave me like a six dollar bottle, 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:28.879 you can. You can taste the difference. It's between that 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.840 and like bottle. Yeah, but even then, if that's what 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:33.880 you like, that's what you like. I'm not poo, It's 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:37.560 just not what I want, you know. Oh man, a 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.040 lot of caveats there. So um, we were talking about 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:45.399 Rudy kay yeah, and how to how to he faked 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.320 wines and he was He got real bottles correct in general, 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.720 and made his own wine concoctions. Here's what this dude 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.520 did right to get to the point where he could 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.560 even counterfeit. Yes, he got his hands on real stuff 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:03.000 and he ran up some serious, serious bar tabs while 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.960 he was doing it. There's a very um legendary story 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.280 of him hooking up with this guy who was the 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:17.800 head of wine sales at a um a an auction 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:23.000 house called Acker Meryll. They factor in big time into 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:27.280 this guy's ascent and Rudy Kay's counterfeit ascent, not weddingly necessarily, 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:33.399 but they they let him use their reputation to build 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.440 his own. But he did it by duping them by 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:40.359 throwing like these crazy parties at like um at um 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.520 restaurants and having like two fifty thousand dollar tabs, picking 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.560 up the tab himself. But then after everybody left, going 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:49.680 to the staff at the restaurant being like, mail me 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.399 every single one of those bottles, and they go, well, okay, 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:57.040 it's your wine, but that's weird. Not enough to make 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.679 mention of it, but it was odd to them. His 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:01.640 big thing was that he did it at the same 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.280 place over and over again, so they did start to notice. 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.159 But while he was doing this, he was also collecting wine, 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.960 to really expensive vintage wine, and there was already a 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.159 market for it, but it didn't look anything like the 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.959 market that he built almost himself. He drove the value 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.760 of vintage wine up almost singlehandedly by buying up as 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.280 many bottles of old stuff as he could um And 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:29.400 while he was doing that, he was building his reputation. 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.080 He was making connections and he was getting his hands 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:35.240 on legitimate wine that he could use to resell now 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.200 that the market was up at a higher price after 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.480 he had already consumed it. It say like a party. Yeah. 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:44.760 And one thing he was doing that tipped off some 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:47.840 people early on was um. Like you were saying, he 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:52.960 was buying off years of good vintages, great vintages, to 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.720 where there was one guy who thinks Jeffrey Troy was 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.000 his name. He was a wine merchant and he said 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.560 he was buying these good bottles for French Burgundy, but 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.040 they weren't great, they were off years, and it was 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.240 just if he was a collector, it was just weird 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.359 to buy these, uh, and to be adamant about buying 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:11.240 these because he could get him for cheaper and fake 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.040 them easier exactly, like he could just kind of smudge 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.280 the year and all of a sudden it's a much 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:21.200 more expensive vintage. Um. So he's he's driving the market up. 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.800 He's buying legitimate wine. Apparently he's taking out loans that 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:29.480 he defaulted on to to build this reputation of his UM. 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:33.760 And so when the market hits he starts counterfeiting, And 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.560 there was one story that actually was pretty prominent in 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:42.439 the Vanity Fair article where he was apparently confused. He thought, 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.240 and there's no way that any of us would have 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:50.600 ever thought this, but he thought that a Ponceau close St. 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:57.560 Denis was the same thing as the Christine Ponceau close St. Denis. Right, 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.639 he was way off. So it turns out that he 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:06.320 figured that ponce Uh made this wine in Burgundy in 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.760 the forties because Christine ponce so close end and he's 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:12.240 made this wine in the forties. Turns out that the 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:17.359 regular Ponceo, the very famous Ponceau family made their close 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.960 end any starting in the eighties, so that he actually 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:23.680 got found out because of this one mistake. This led 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.840 to his unraveling, and he was going to auction or 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.399 sell about like nine bottles of this stuff that was 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.879 overtly counterfeit. It had never existed, which also said a 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.720 lot about the collectors at the time too, because they 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:40.280 were covening and paying for wine that they never even 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:45.240 heard of it strictly because these these people were attached 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:47.920 to it. It's pretty amazing, it really is. And that's 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:49.359 how he was able to get away with it. For 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:53.560 so long because that dinner, the guy Ponceau himself, um, 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:56.080 the guy who was the proprietor of the vineyard, showed 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.720 up at that dinner, flew from Paris to I think 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:01.040 New York to be at the dinner to make sure 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:03.360 that they didn't auction off those things because he knew 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.879 they were counterfeit. And Rudy Kay still was left to 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:13.280 just keep going for years after that because because of reputations. Well, 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:15.320 and like you said, he had built up this reputation, 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:18.000 which is a big part of it. Um, you have 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:19.760 to be a true con artist. You can't just go 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:23.359 in there, uh and say, I've got all these Jefferson wines. 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:26.560 I'm chuck. You know, you have to be known in 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:28.960 the community, and it takes a long time, and they 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:31.080 have to think that right, Yeah, I have to think 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:33.520 you have money, real money. What he did, No, he 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:38.840 borrowed it all. Well, I thought he came for money. 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:40.919 That was well, he had money at one point. He 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:44.200 borrowed oh no, but then he made a lot, right, 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:46.800 So think about this. I think he defaulted on a 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:49.159 three or four million dollar loan and then another one 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:51.920 or two million dollar loan, and then he also borrowed 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:55.800