Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from the house stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Child's w Chuck Bryant, and No little
Speaker 1: Bit even is stuff you should Know. Man, that coffee
Speaker 1: smells good? You want something? Have a sip? No, I'm fine,
Speaker 1: but it's just I just love that smells so nice,
Speaker 1: even though I don't drink much coffee. Oh yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: with you. You know, it's just a delicious smell. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'll go to a department store and just walk through
Speaker 1: the fragrant aisle and just smell the coffee samples they have. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna say you got through the
Speaker 1: lingerie and just brush up against things after the coffee.
Speaker 1: So after the coffee sniffing is done and I can't
Speaker 1: smell anything anymore, right, How are you? Thanks for outing me? Man?
Speaker 1: It's creepy. Yeah, you know, I'm sure there's weirdos out
Speaker 1: there who do that. Are you kidding me? There's probably
Speaker 1: websites dedicated to it. Yeah, I'm fine. Good. Good? Do
Speaker 1: you like wine? I love wine? How do you know,
Speaker 1: Chuck that the wine you're drinking, it's actually the wine
Speaker 1: you're thinking is because nobody bothers to fraudently rip off
Speaker 1: bottle of one. Not true. Yeah, there's a famous issue
Speaker 1: in the world of wine fraud. Watch people okay um
Speaker 1: from Tesco, which is I think it's just a straight
Speaker 1: up like supermarket Kim in Britain, I saw that. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, And there was a louis Ja dough which
Speaker 1: normally goes for about fifteen pounds. It was selling on
Speaker 1: sale for five pounds. That's a good deal. But one
Speaker 1: of the guys who purchased it contacted some people who
Speaker 1: are into wine and said, I think this is phony
Speaker 1: because the label looks like it's a photo copy. So
Speaker 1: somebody was doing knock off louis Ja dough which normally
Speaker 1: goes for not that much, and old at t Tesco,
Speaker 1: who was in turn selling it. And this is a
Speaker 1: huge thing. Man. There's a big, big debate even still
Speaker 1: and just how widespread wine fraud is. And it's really
Speaker 1: difficult to get to the bottom of because there's so
Speaker 1: many people who have their fingers in this fraudulent pot,
Speaker 1: whether wittingly or unwittingly, in either way, are unwilling to
Speaker 1: admit that it's as extensive as it is, or the
Speaker 1: people who are burned are making a bigger deal out
Speaker 1: of it than they are than it really is, because
Speaker 1: they have the money in the context to get CBS
Speaker 1: to do a story on how they got burned by
Speaker 1: buying some fake wine. So it's not entirely clear how
Speaker 1: widespread it is. But there have been some really great,
Speaker 1: very famous but almost proven stories of outright wine fraud.
Speaker 1: But it's a pretty new phenomenon. Uh. Well, if you
Speaker 1: think ancient Roman is pretty new, let's hear it man.
Speaker 1: Well that's I mean there ever since there was wine,
Speaker 1: people were making fake wine or trumping it up as
Speaker 1: something other than it was. So the newer practice, like
Speaker 1: you can divide it into two things. There was an
Speaker 1: ancient room they were doing stuff like this and adding
Speaker 1: like lead to wine to sweeten it while they were
Speaker 1: killing people. Uh. But then there's the new practice of like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is a Thomas Jefferson bottle of wine and you
Speaker 1: con bided a Christie's auction for a hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and it's really not that at all. Do you remember
Speaker 1: back in the eighties, Um, I think reu Needy was
Speaker 1: adding like when you wipe a fluid or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was at the very least an urban legend. More recently,
Speaker 1: there was something added to wine to make it sweeter
Speaker 1: that was really bad for you. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: I can't confirm if it was that case or not.
Speaker 1: This was specifically reu Needy in the eighties. And it again,
Speaker 1: it could have just been an urban legend because at
Speaker 1: the same time that there were spiders eggs in bubble yum.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, there was a lot of like a
Speaker 1: consumer uh panic. I think yeah, it was a golden
Speaker 1: age for urban legends. Yeah, agreed. Uh. And you know what,
Speaker 1: we need to do one on wine period. Yes, this
Speaker 1: is so us. Yeah, we'll do episodes on everything but
Speaker 1: the actual thing, and then we'll finally get to the thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we could also probably do a completely separate podcast
Speaker 1: on wine tasting, because man, that's a really bitter pill,
Speaker 1: because there are some people who say there really is
Speaker 1: no difference in these wines, and there have been numerous
Speaker 1: occasions over the years where jerks have set up wine
Speaker 1: tasters to fail by just switching out wines and saying
Speaker 1: this is a really nice bot or what's really crappy,
Speaker 1: and they say whoa, this is lovely. The tannons are
Speaker 1: really coming in. It's jammie and full, and they're like,
Speaker 1: you're drinking too buck chuck um stuff that. It's a
Speaker 1: big bone of contention with wine drinkers and also people
Speaker 1: who like to poop poo that and say it's all
Speaker 1: subjective and you're all just snooty and either really is
Speaker 1: no difference, but there really is a difference. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so there is a like you say, there's there's a
Speaker 1: big debate over that, right, um, But if you if
Speaker 1: you dive into the world of high end vintage wine collecting,
Speaker 1: it is very um. It's like an aura borus, right,
Speaker 1: that snake that eats its own tail, in that the
Speaker 1: people who are in charge of judging whether something's real
Speaker 1: or not are basing that on their previous experiences, which
Speaker 1: may or may not have been an experience with a
Speaker 1: fraudulent wine. So even if you can tell the difference,
Speaker 1: if you've only been exposed to, say, fraudulent eighteen century wine,
Speaker 1: then when you are asked to judge a bottle of
Speaker 1: like eighteenth century wine, you're gonna compare it to that,
Speaker 1: And if it's ultimately coming from the same counterfeitter. You
Speaker 1: will be like, yes, this is the real thing, because
Speaker 1: I've had that before and it tastes like that. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and here's the other thing. Is there there is vintage,
Speaker 1: uh appropriately aged wine that is tastes great because it
Speaker 1: has aged in such a way. And then there are
Speaker 1: these super old bottles that apparently it tastes like canned
Speaker 1: asparagus is the note that it brings out, And these
Speaker 1: don't even taste that good. It's just the fact that
Speaker 1: you can own it and show people. You don't even
Speaker 1: drink it. In most cases, you don't drink at Jefferson wine.
Speaker 1: You have it in your collection. So some say, look
Speaker 1: at my collection. Exactly. That's the whole point a lot
Speaker 1: of people are. For a lot of people, that's the
Speaker 1: whole point. It's just own this bottle. It's like owning
Speaker 1: a piece of Thomas Jefferson and you get to show
Speaker 1: off and and tell people how great you are. Right exactly. So, Um,
Speaker 1: that's how a lot of wine counterfeiting has gotten away
Speaker 1: with because the people are never going to open the wine.
Speaker 1: So whatever tampering you did with the the seal is
Speaker 1: never going to be discovered. Um, they're never gonna taste
Speaker 1: the wine inside, so it could be two buck chalk
Speaker 1: or whatever. Won't see the cork. Yeah. Um, and they're
Speaker 1: just they're just happy to have this thing and their
Speaker 1: status to be elevated to the point where they don't
Speaker 1: really want to know if it's a counterfeit, so long
Speaker 1: as they can walk around and tell people. This is
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson. Right, Well, we should go ahead and start
Speaker 1: talking about Bill Coke. He is uh, one of the
Speaker 1: other brothers. He is not Charles or David Coke of
Speaker 1: the famous uh Republican Coke brothers, fame billionaire supporters of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. Yeah. Yeah, sure, she's saying that's like
Speaker 1: the nicest way to describe them. Yeah, it is. Uh.
Speaker 1: He is the brother, one of the brothers who got
Speaker 1: out along with another brother. Um, but not another brother
Speaker 1: from another mother. No, they are the same mother, right right, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got out of the family business and said, you
Speaker 1: know what, um, a billionaire, I'm gonna what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do is I'm gonna start collecting really rare and expensive things. Um.
Speaker 1: One thing he has is a gun collection. He owns
Speaker 1: Custer's rifle, Billy the Kid's pistol. Does he he owns
Speaker 1: the gun that killed Jesse James. Oh, I'm sorry, is
Speaker 1: Jesse James Pistol? And that gun and that what was
Speaker 1: his name? Robert Ford? Yeah? And that was a good movie.
Speaker 1: Boy was it really good? Beautifully shot as well Wide
Speaker 1: Rupe's rifle, Doc Holiday's rifle. He has a lot of
Speaker 1: vintage guns. He has a lot of very famous works
Speaker 1: of art like original Picassos and monaise As exactly. He
Speaker 1: sounds like a big sucker to me. And he also
Speaker 1: owns uh as this article says several hundred bottles of
Speaker 1: what he calls moose piss. Yeah, that's what he calls it.
Speaker 1: He said. He Well, he's saying that for all he knows.
Speaker 1: That's what's inside. He got duped very famously, many many times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he has had many many lawsuits over the years
Speaker 1: that have come out. This guy loves suing people. He
Speaker 1: does what he calls dropping subpoena is on people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he sues people almost recreationally. He drops the subpoena on
Speaker 1: their head. Yeah, what a guy. So he um he
Speaker 1: Bill Coke again very famously, he's probably the most famous
Speaker 1: victim of wine fraud. M because he sues everybody he
Speaker 1: possibly can who may or may not have sold them
Speaker 1: a fake. Really takes it personally, and he really goes
Speaker 1: after people. UM. And he did a lot of media
Speaker 1: about this too, so he's very famous for this. UM.
Speaker 1: And he brought in some wine experts and said, here
Speaker 1: are thirty thousand, forty thousand bottles of wine that I
Speaker 1: have in my sellers. How many are fake? And they
Speaker 1: just took a random sample of three tho bottles. He
Speaker 1: kidding me, No, they said exactly, They're like, we'll bill
Speaker 1: you for this. UM. They took a random sample of
Speaker 1: three thousand bottles and it yielded a hundred and thirty fakes.
Speaker 1: So I mean he has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 1: by by extension of fake bottles of wine in his cellar.
Speaker 1: And that was actually, that's about on par with what
Speaker 1: the average not necessarily uninitiated or uneducated wine buyer, but
Speaker 1: fervent vintage wine buyer would have that about four million
Speaker 1: dollars seller, about a million of it will be on fakes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he supposedly spent close to five million dollars on
Speaker 1: fake wine over the past quarter century, UM, including some
Speaker 1: of those Jefferson's that we'll talk about. Uh and a
Speaker 1: lot of this wine came from a man named Rudy
Speaker 1: Uh crnia Oh that's good stuff. It's even better than
Speaker 1: I had in my head, you crniawan. I like that,
Speaker 1: I think. And this guy was one of the most
Speaker 1: famous um really alongside another guy that we'll talk about,
Speaker 1: one of the most famous wine fraud discs, fraudster, fraudster, counterfeitters,
Speaker 1: counterfeitters of all time um And he was sentenced to
Speaker 1: ten years in prison and supposedly was to pay close
Speaker 1: to fifty million dollars in damages, which is easily what
Speaker 1: he made by selling fake wine. In two sales in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, he made thirty six million dollars
Speaker 1: selling fake wine. What a jerk. And it's easy to
Speaker 1: sit back. And the fence team even used this in
Speaker 1: court to say, ah, these are rich guys, like no harm,
Speaker 1: no foul, who cares very if you're ripping off the rich.
Speaker 1: And I even found myself kind of thinking that. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, who it's wrong, it's wrong,
Speaker 1: it's wrong. Sure, I mean, like I wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't sell a counterfeit bottle of wine. Yeah, it's wrong,
Speaker 1: it's illegal, and it's it's gross. And just because you're
Speaker 1: ripping off the rich, it's not like he's Robin Hood
Speaker 1: and giving that then to the poor. You know he was.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the idea that he was doing that.
Speaker 1: Plus Um, Dave Rugs, who wrote this, made this point,
Speaker 1: but I take issue with it that ultimately vintage counterfeit
Speaker 1: wine fraud affects all wine drinkers because that stuff trickles down.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true because from reading this um.
Speaker 1: There were two really great long form articles that this
Speaker 1: article was partially based on. One was in The New
Speaker 1: Yorker and one was on Vanity Fair, and both of
Speaker 1: them were totally worth reading. UM. But just from reading
Speaker 1: those you get the impression that those are two very
Speaker 1: different worlds. That the world of like just regular wine
Speaker 1: appreciation and vintage wine collection form of ven diagram that
Speaker 1: just barely overlaps, and that one really does not affect
Speaker 1: the economy the economics of the other. So if there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of counterfeit stuff going on in the vintage
Speaker 1: wine world, it probably wouldn't drive up prices for the
Speaker 1: wine that you're buying that's you know, ten years old tops.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that that's necessarily true. His point
Speaker 1: that we all shoulder the burden that counterfeiters do because
Speaker 1: these two worlds are so divorced. But even still, like
Speaker 1: if you were a people are losing money and reputations
Speaker 1: are being built up and lost. You know, I get that.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's take a little break and we'll
Speaker 1: come back and uh, we'll talk about the two ways
Speaker 1: that you can generally go about trying to fake a wine.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, We're drunk on wine. I wish
Speaker 1: what's your favorite wine? Uh? My favorite wines are big
Speaker 1: bodied California cabernets generally, like not a specific like wine maker.
Speaker 1: If that's what you're asking, I'm not gonna like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no wrong answer. Yeah no, Well that was that
Speaker 1: funny because it made me think of fat bottom girls,
Speaker 1: that Queen song big bodied California Ca. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: potts in my head and I laughed like a goon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like really full bodied wines, zimpandels and cabernets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think California is just they're doing it right. You know,
Speaker 1: they say petitzeras the Rodney danger field of the wine world.
Speaker 1: I've heard that. So if you're gonna go about faking
Speaker 1: a wine, um, you uh, there are two things you
Speaker 1: can do. You can either fake the wine inside a
Speaker 1: real bottle or you can fake the bottle real wine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's all real wine. You know, it's different vintage
Speaker 1: maybe yeah, but like it could be like a really
Speaker 1: nice seven wine that you say it's actually from nineteen
Speaker 1: fourteen or even one. I mean, like it could be
Speaker 1: within a couple of years. It just depends on on
Speaker 1: whether it was a good year or if the if
Speaker 1: there's a scarcity of it, that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 1: actually Bill Cook makes a pretty good point. His whole
Speaker 1: thing is he wants to have I think a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years of Lafitte or some some house, like
Speaker 1: every single vintage that they released of every single variety
Speaker 1: over the course of a hundred and fifty years, which
Speaker 1: is extremely ambitious. And he said it's easy to get
Speaker 1: the really prized ones because those are the ones that
Speaker 1: like people saved in all that. He said, it's the
Speaker 1: mediocre years that are old that nobody bothered to say
Speaker 1: this drank and threw away the bottle or just didn't
Speaker 1: keep it. Those are the ones that he has the
Speaker 1: most trouble. Fine, or they did skeet shooting. They just
Speaker 1: had the servants stowed up in the air and they
Speaker 1: shot him with shotguns. That's what they do. Richie Riches, Uh, well,
Speaker 1: you make a good point too, because Colonie Allen, although
Speaker 1: he dealt in the super high echelon, he would also
Speaker 1: take a two bottle of wine and fake it to
Speaker 1: be like a thousand dollar bottle. Yeah, he did it
Speaker 1: both ways. He would he would take out, he would
Speaker 1: take an old bottle, legitimate real bottle, put in his
Speaker 1: own mix of wine and cork it again and and
Speaker 1: make it look like it had never been open. Or
Speaker 1: like you said, he would take just say, a forty
Speaker 1: seven Lafitte and mess with the label to make it
Speaker 1: look like a forty one Lafitte, which would be worth
Speaker 1: ten times that what the forty seven Lafitte would be worth. Right,
Speaker 1: And clearly, I also want to point out Lafitte is
Speaker 1: obviously the only fancy wine that I'm familiar with, because
Speaker 1: that's my go too. So if you guys are out
Speaker 1: there and you're getting the impression that I know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about as far as wine goes, you have
Speaker 1: been duped. Well, you're not a big wine guy. You're
Speaker 1: on sortis such, I like wine. I'm I'm definitely not
Speaker 1: a wine guy exactly. Yeah. Uh, and I'm that wine
Speaker 1: guy either. I'm I'm at the very I'm wine guy
Speaker 1: in the brest sense of the word. I like really
Speaker 1: good wines. I like going to wineries. But I'm certainly
Speaker 1: no like. I'm not saying I have some amazing palette.
Speaker 1: I can't pick out vanilla notes and things like that.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, man, this tastes really good for up
Speaker 1: bottle of it. And I tend to fall into that
Speaker 1: camp where I'm certain that there are people out there,
Speaker 1: literal tastemakers who can tell the difference between wine and
Speaker 1: I've had wine that I didn't like before, I've had
Speaker 1: wine that I do like. Um, But I fall into
Speaker 1: the camp where I'm ultimately like, it's it's whatever you appreciate.
Speaker 1: It's no hierarchy, there doesn't need to be. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: a two thousand dollar bottle is not necessarily going to
Speaker 1: taste as good as a twenty dollar bottle. That that
Speaker 1: you the whole thing is just about individual enjoyment, and
Speaker 1: he kind of snobbery associated with it to me just
Speaker 1: misses the point. Yeah, here's my deal is, I can
Speaker 1: really tell the difference between what I would consider cheap
Speaker 1: wine and like a decent bottle or a good bottle.
Speaker 1: But that's where my taste level max is out. I
Speaker 1: can't tell the difference between a two bottle and at bottle,
Speaker 1: But if you gave me like a six dollar bottle,
Speaker 1: you can. You can taste the difference. It's between that
Speaker 1: and like bottle. Yeah, but even then, if that's what
Speaker 1: you like, that's what you like. I'm not poo, It's
Speaker 1: just not what I want, you know. Oh man, a
Speaker 1: lot of caveats there. So um, we were talking about
Speaker 1: Rudy kay yeah, and how to how to he faked
Speaker 1: wines and he was He got real bottles correct in general,
Speaker 1: and made his own wine concoctions. Here's what this dude
Speaker 1: did right to get to the point where he could
Speaker 1: even counterfeit. Yes, he got his hands on real stuff
Speaker 1: and he ran up some serious, serious bar tabs while
Speaker 1: he was doing it. There's a very um legendary story
Speaker 1: of him hooking up with this guy who was the
Speaker 1: head of wine sales at a um a an auction
Speaker 1: house called Acker Meryll. They factor in big time into
Speaker 1: this guy's ascent and Rudy Kay's counterfeit ascent, not weddingly necessarily,
Speaker 1: but they they let him use their reputation to build
Speaker 1: his own. But he did it by duping them by
Speaker 1: throwing like these crazy parties at like um at um
Speaker 1: restaurants and having like two fifty thousand dollar tabs, picking
Speaker 1: up the tab himself. But then after everybody left, going
Speaker 1: to the staff at the restaurant being like, mail me
Speaker 1: every single one of those bottles, and they go, well, okay,
Speaker 1: it's your wine, but that's weird. Not enough to make
Speaker 1: mention of it, but it was odd to them. His
Speaker 1: big thing was that he did it at the same
Speaker 1: place over and over again, so they did start to notice.
Speaker 1: But while he was doing this, he was also collecting wine,
Speaker 1: to really expensive vintage wine, and there was already a
Speaker 1: market for it, but it didn't look anything like the
Speaker 1: market that he built almost himself. He drove the value
Speaker 1: of vintage wine up almost singlehandedly by buying up as
Speaker 1: many bottles of old stuff as he could um And
Speaker 1: while he was doing that, he was building his reputation.
Speaker 1: He was making connections and he was getting his hands
Speaker 1: on legitimate wine that he could use to resell now
Speaker 1: that the market was up at a higher price after
Speaker 1: he had already consumed it. It say like a party. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one thing he was doing that tipped off some
Speaker 1: people early on was um. Like you were saying, he
Speaker 1: was buying off years of good vintages, great vintages, to
Speaker 1: where there was one guy who thinks Jeffrey Troy was
Speaker 1: his name. He was a wine merchant and he said
Speaker 1: he was buying these good bottles for French Burgundy, but
Speaker 1: they weren't great, they were off years, and it was
Speaker 1: just if he was a collector, it was just weird
Speaker 1: to buy these, uh, and to be adamant about buying
Speaker 1: these because he could get him for cheaper and fake
Speaker 1: them easier exactly, like he could just kind of smudge
Speaker 1: the year and all of a sudden it's a much
Speaker 1: more expensive vintage. Um. So he's he's driving the market up.
Speaker 1: He's buying legitimate wine. Apparently he's taking out loans that
Speaker 1: he defaulted on to to build this reputation of his UM.
Speaker 1: And so when the market hits he starts counterfeiting, And
Speaker 1: there was one story that actually was pretty prominent in
Speaker 1: the Vanity Fair article where he was apparently confused. He thought,
Speaker 1: and there's no way that any of us would have
Speaker 1: ever thought this, but he thought that a Ponceau close St.
Speaker 1: Denis was the same thing as the Christine Ponceau close St. Denis. Right,
Speaker 1: he was way off. So it turns out that he
Speaker 1: figured that ponce Uh made this wine in Burgundy in
Speaker 1: the forties because Christine ponce so close end and he's
Speaker 1: made this wine in the forties. Turns out that the
Speaker 1: regular Ponceo, the very famous Ponceau family made their close
Speaker 1: end any starting in the eighties, so that he actually
Speaker 1: got found out because of this one mistake. This led
Speaker 1: to his unraveling, and he was going to auction or
Speaker 1: sell about like nine bottles of this stuff that was
Speaker 1: overtly counterfeit. It had never existed, which also said a
Speaker 1: lot about the collectors at the time too, because they
Speaker 1: were covening and paying for wine that they never even
Speaker 1: heard of it strictly because these these people were attached
Speaker 1: to it. It's pretty amazing, it really is. And that's
Speaker 1: how he was able to get away with it. For
Speaker 1: so long because that dinner, the guy Ponceau himself, um,
Speaker 1: the guy who was the proprietor of the vineyard, showed
Speaker 1: up at that dinner, flew from Paris to I think
Speaker 1: New York to be at the dinner to make sure
Speaker 1: that they didn't auction off those things because he knew
Speaker 1: they were counterfeit. And Rudy Kay still was left to
Speaker 1: just keep going for years after that because because of reputations. Well,
Speaker 1: and like you said, he had built up this reputation,
Speaker 1: which is a big part of it. Um, you have
Speaker 1: to be a true con artist. You can't just go
Speaker 1: in there, uh and say, I've got all these Jefferson wines.
Speaker 1: I'm chuck. You know, you have to be known in
Speaker 1: the community, and it takes a long time, and they
Speaker 1: have to think that right, Yeah, I have to think
Speaker 1: you have money, real money. What he did, No, he
Speaker 1: borrowed it all. Well, I thought he came for money.
Speaker 1: That was well, he had money at one point. He
Speaker 1: borrowed oh no, but then he made a lot, right,
Speaker 1: So think about this. I think he defaulted on a
Speaker 1: three or four million dollar loan and then another one
Speaker 1: or two million dollar loan, and then he also borrowed
Speaker 1: privately from other like wine collectors that he knew. But
Speaker 1: even still, let's say he borrowed ten million dollars that
Speaker 1: he defaulted, he may tens intens intens more millions thirty
Speaker 1: four million dollars in one year just from two sales. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he currently is appealing his conviction UM on the
Speaker 1: grounds that uh that when when he was arrested, he
Speaker 1: was arrested on his front porch. Then they searched his
Speaker 1: house and they said you can't do that. That That they
Speaker 1: got the the search warrant afterward, and he said, well
Speaker 1: you can't do that. There should I should have never
Speaker 1: been searched. And it's looking like they're saying, now you
Speaker 1: know what they had reasonable uh doubt. Uh said yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: So I don't think the appeal is going to go anywhere.
Speaker 1: But this is as recently as like this year. I
Speaker 1: think he's still appealing. But he got ten years, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: ten years man, Um, So he got caught and he
Speaker 1: got caught red hand, red handed. It sounds like UM
Speaker 1: and the people who were attached to him that helped
Speaker 1: built up this market definitely suffered uh some dings to
Speaker 1: their reputation. But are saying like, we had no idea,
Speaker 1: we trusted this guy, we were duped too, and UM
Speaker 1: to their to their merit acker, meryll Um offered like, uh,
Speaker 1: money back guarantees on anything that was considered found to
Speaker 1: be fake and and paid up on it after one auction. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the guys Coke is suing is uh. I
Speaker 1: can't remember his name, but he supposed supposedly. He's like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know I was selling you fake wine, like
Speaker 1: I got duped, and he's saying, no, you knew. So
Speaker 1: they were trying to prove whether or not this guy
Speaker 1: actually knew. And so that's that's another part of that
Speaker 1: debate where how widespread is this, who knows what um?
Speaker 1: And who's like how far do you go back before
Speaker 1: you find the person who did it? Right, So we'll
Speaker 1: talk about one other person who allegedly did it right
Speaker 1: after this break. So, Chuck, there's another man, very famous
Speaker 1: man in the wine world. His name is Hardy Hardy
Speaker 1: roden Stock, but I don't believe that's his real name.
Speaker 1: His real name is what mine heart, that's right, what
Speaker 1: a name, that's his given name, But he goes by
Speaker 1: Hardy roden Stock and has since the seventies and he
Speaker 1: to be a truly great wine counterfeitter, not only do
Speaker 1: you have to build up a reputation as rich and
Speaker 1: um willing to crack bottles of ridiculously expensive, um historically
Speaker 1: valuable wine at parties where there's wine critics and auctioneers
Speaker 1: and wine experts, um. But you also have to have
Speaker 1: a certain love for wine. I think Rudy kay definitely
Speaker 1: loved wine. Yes, they but they all have. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and Hardy Rodenbach definitely does too. And apparently there's there's
Speaker 1: a big question about whether he is one of the
Speaker 1: better wine mixers on the planet. Yeah, because that's that's
Speaker 1: a real job, where like like someone will work at
Speaker 1: a winery and they'll take a little bit of this
Speaker 1: and a little bit of that, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you've got there. Yeah, they're they're they're blend.
Speaker 1: Some blends are better than others. Apparently Rodenstock is a
Speaker 1: master blender if he is in fact a counterfeiter. This
Speaker 1: article on how stuff works make it makes it sound
Speaker 1: like Bill Coke's hired FBI gun closed the book and
Speaker 1: like it's done. But it's never been proven in a
Speaker 1: court of law. That Rodenstock actually um was this counterfeiter
Speaker 1: and he still denies the allegations. Well, the circumstantial evidence
Speaker 1: is pretty pretty substantial. Yeah, I mean I think the
Speaker 1: only reason is because he refuses to come to America
Speaker 1: to go to court, you know. But there's no criminal
Speaker 1: Prosecution's all civil as far as I understand. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's the case. So he was a former music
Speaker 1: manager and um, he I think they're making him. There's
Speaker 1: a book called The Billionaires Vinegar about this about the
Speaker 1: Jefferson wines that they're making into a movie with McConaughey.
Speaker 1: Of course, does he play Bill Coke or Hardy roden Stock.
Speaker 1: I don't know who he's playing, or does he just
Speaker 1: kind of like wander around days in the background he's
Speaker 1: the wine maker man. Uh yeah, I'm not sure who
Speaker 1: he's playing actually, But it was a big book and
Speaker 1: it was about the famous Jefferson wines and basically the
Speaker 1: deal is Thomas Jefferson, as we all know, was way
Speaker 1: into wine, way into France. UM, a big francophile and
Speaker 1: he had either bottles in his collection or he had
Speaker 1: his own vintage as well. Um, Thomas Jefferson wines and
Speaker 1: very famously, Hardens stock was rooted out allegedly. I guess
Speaker 1: do we have to say that as faking these Jefferson bottles. Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: he would force you know, you're supposed to spit out
Speaker 1: when you're drinking wine tasting. He would. He would I
Speaker 1: don't know about force, but highly encourage his guests to swallow,
Speaker 1: so they would be drunker by the time they got
Speaker 1: to the real good stuff at the end, which is
Speaker 1: and again, so it's unusual to force your guests to
Speaker 1: drink rather than spit out the wine at a tasting party.
Speaker 1: And then it's also unusual to bring out your best
Speaker 1: stuff at the end because everybody knows your palette is
Speaker 1: saturated and you can't really tell the difference anyway. Well,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been on a wine tour and go
Speaker 1: to like several wineries, you definitely at the last winery
Speaker 1: you're like, give me a case. Is great. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: when he's throwing these parties in these tastings, again, he's invited,
Speaker 1: and they're very smart to invite wine experts, wine critics,
Speaker 1: wine journalists. It's an event. It is an event. And
Speaker 1: again all these people think that this dude, it is
Speaker 1: just this eccentric, extraordinarily rich dude who is literally opening
Speaker 1: to drink and share with them. He's wonderful, these these
Speaker 1: people who are peons compared to this man. He's such
Speaker 1: a great man because he's opened a seventeen eighties seven
Speaker 1: bottle of Thomas Jefferson's wine and he's given me a glass.
Speaker 1: I've got to go right about it. I got to
Speaker 1: talk about how great Hardy roden Stock is. So it's
Speaker 1: very smart to have surrounded himself with the people he did. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So his story was that he said, um, he claimed
Speaker 1: that he found a batch of Jefferson bottles behind a
Speaker 1: brick wall in a Paris Parisian basement that he still
Speaker 1: hasn't revealed where this is a little suspicious. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then if you already got all the wine out of there, yeah, exactly. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then he and uh, he went and sold a
Speaker 1: lot of these two people like Coke and Christopher Forbes
Speaker 1: and other billionaires for um, hundreds of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: per bottle. And I think they were like about a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty bottle. Yeah, it's a ton of money.
Speaker 1: And um, they were fakes and it was all it
Speaker 1: all came down to a little matter of punctuation, which
Speaker 1: is hysterical to me that Thomas Jefferson bottles. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, he kept really meticulous records because he
Speaker 1: was so into wine. Jefferson. Yeah, so on the bottles,
Speaker 1: chuck it said, and it was engraved t H period
Speaker 1: capital J period. Right. Supposedly, Jefferson, when he wrote his initials,
Speaker 1: it would be t H colon capital J period. So
Speaker 1: that fatal flaw of the matter of punctuation is what
Speaker 1: gave him away. Basically, Yeah, well there's a larger question too.
Speaker 1: So the idea that Thomas Jefferson would have his bottles
Speaker 1: engraved was based on a letter, a verified letter. Um.
Speaker 1: It was an order that Jefferson placed for French wine
Speaker 1: on behalf of himself and George Washington, Which makes these
Speaker 1: bottles even more amazingly awesome because they think, well, these
Speaker 1: came from an order that Jefferson placed, that we're also
Speaker 1: in George Washington's shipment as well, and that they they
Speaker 1: they needed to be separated out by initials. But if
Speaker 1: you step back and you think they wouldn't go in
Speaker 1: and grave all the bottles, they just marked the crates
Speaker 1: that the bottles came in. This create goes to George,
Speaker 1: this crate goes to Jefferson because he was ordering it
Speaker 1: by the case, not by the bottle. So the idea
Speaker 1: that the bottles would be engraved is also dubious in
Speaker 1: and of itself. But Monticello historians are like, number one,
Speaker 1: he this is wrong the way that this is engraved,
Speaker 1: that's not how he would have done it. And secondly,
Speaker 1: there's no records in all of we have the records
Speaker 1: for this era, and there's nothing in there about these
Speaker 1: vintages being in Monicello or being ordered by Jefferson. And
Speaker 1: then also, um, once Bill Coke put his FBI dude
Speaker 1: on the on the case, it turns out that it's
Speaker 1: likely that this this engraving was done by modern instruments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he hired a guy named an ex fed named Jim
Speaker 1: McElroy or I'm sorry, Jim Elroy and Royal, I guess,
Speaker 1: because so he hired this guy, paid him a lot
Speaker 1: of money, I imagine, to try and do some digging
Speaker 1: on this. And one of their first lines of defense
Speaker 1: was there's something called uh cesium dash one seven, and
Speaker 1: that is UH a radioactive isotope that exists because it's
Speaker 1: a product of nuclear fission of uranium. So it didn't
Speaker 1: exist until we started doing that, before we started launching
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb explosion tests. Yeah, exactly. Uh, now it exists,
Speaker 1: and you can actually test for this stuff, so if
Speaker 1: you find you know it basically can date something back
Speaker 1: to However, in the case of harden Stock, he was
Speaker 1: smart enough at least to use wine older than so
Speaker 1: that didn't really help him much. Yeah, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if he just surely he is lucked out because I
Speaker 1: wonder if that Caeson test was around when he did this,
Speaker 1: because this he supposedly found him in eighty five and
Speaker 1: started selling him immediately. Yeah, who knows, maybe got lucky
Speaker 1: or maybe he just was like, I need to use
Speaker 1: some really old, nice wine, yeah, to at least try
Speaker 1: and get away with it. So again there's like and
Speaker 1: then there. One other part of the case against him
Speaker 1: was that he had a tenant once at his family's
Speaker 1: house who had an apartment near his. In the house
Speaker 1: and in the basement, the tenant said that he saw
Speaker 1: like basically tons of empty bottles and um stacks of
Speaker 1: labels and all this stuff, which to the tenant meant, well,
Speaker 1: this guy's forging wine. Right, that's a little more. That's
Speaker 1: probably what I would think. I hope he doesn't go
Speaker 1: by my recycling every Wednesday here wine counterfeitter, it could be. Uh,
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of there's nothing you can
Speaker 1: do about these these old um, I mean, you can
Speaker 1: have people inspect them and try and verify them, but
Speaker 1: there's really nothing you can do as a like a
Speaker 1: full proof method. But really nice wineries now arguing there
Speaker 1: are a lot of methods you can do now for
Speaker 1: future generations of wine fraud. Yeah, for the vintage stuff
Speaker 1: you're s o l Basically, you just have to really
Speaker 1: trust where it's coming from. Probably hire an expert and
Speaker 1: um maybe stay away from rodent stock if you're Bill Coke. Right,
Speaker 1: that's right. But there Yeah, like you said, the modern
Speaker 1: guys are using things like um R f I D tags,
Speaker 1: um QR codes that you scan and it takes you
Speaker 1: to a website or something. Microchips like you have in
Speaker 1: your dog. Yeah, so you can track the actual bottle.
Speaker 1: There's also like tamper proof um capsules, the that the
Speaker 1: wine is encased in the bottle's neck that when that's
Speaker 1: open it changes color. If it's ever been opened and
Speaker 1: some actually alert the internet or I guess back home
Speaker 1: at head Court the Internet once it's been open. And
Speaker 1: there's another one that's pretty cool. There's this company that
Speaker 1: inserts a specific DNA marker into like the ink on
Speaker 1: the label that can't be counterfeit, and that they can
Speaker 1: go back and later and be like, no, this is real.
Speaker 1: At the very least, we know the labels real. And
Speaker 1: rudy case case, he had a bunch of credit card
Speaker 1: charges for glue and labels and ink, and he, I
Speaker 1: mean he had a pretty nice trail of evidence behind him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was not very smart with it. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: if his apartment was just a counterfeiting factor. And then
Speaker 1: lastly checked the one of the pieces of evidence that
Speaker 1: a lot of people point to when they say that
Speaker 1: um wine fraud is a big deal um is eBay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You can go on eBay and spend a hundred bucks
Speaker 1: on a empty bottle that, if it weren't empty, would
Speaker 1: go for a thousand or ten thousand or whatever. And
Speaker 1: the idea behind it, of course, is that somebody's alling
Speaker 1: it up and putting it back on the market as
Speaker 1: a counterfeit. Why would someone sell that that reason to
Speaker 1: make a hundred bucks on a ten dollar bottle of wine.
Speaker 1: Some people love money. I don't know. It just seems
Speaker 1: like a lot of just people who buy that kind
Speaker 1: of wine. I don't picture them going on eBay and
Speaker 1: running auctions over It makes you wonder also if like
Speaker 1: those are people who they're like, they're just working at
Speaker 1: a restaurant and well, that's what it sounds like to me,
Speaker 1: and take that home and put it on anybay. The
Speaker 1: servant throws the uh you know, cleans up after the
Speaker 1: dinner party. Yeah, that's what I figure what's going on?
Speaker 1: And apparently a lot of restaurants now because of guys
Speaker 1: like Rudy Kay and uh Hardy Roads Road and stock
Speaker 1: now um smash vintage bottles once the wine has been
Speaker 1: ordered and drunk with. Well with the shotgun in the
Speaker 1: skeet shooting, I got one last thing. Supposedly there were
Speaker 1: only five Magnums Fleur produced. Uh. Between two thousand five
Speaker 1: and two thousand seven, eighteen magnums of seven La Fleur
Speaker 1: were sold at auction. That's so easy to How can
Speaker 1: that happen? That's so easy to check when there's only
Speaker 1: five of something. The argument is that either the guy
Speaker 1: who works at La Fleur and did in seven and says, no,
Speaker 1: there was only five magnums doesn't remember because the record
Speaker 1: keeping in like Burgundy is terrible back in the day.
Speaker 1: Um or that the there's just no will. There's so
Speaker 1: much of a market for counterfeit wine, and there's not
Speaker 1: enough pressure being put on the people who are actually
Speaker 1: selling it or allowing it to happen, that it's just whatever.
Speaker 1: And supposedly now that America has gotten more and more savvy,
Speaker 1: this counterfeit market is moving over to China, so where
Speaker 1: there's like a lot of wealth coming up and not
Speaker 1: a lot of wine education, and people are just getting
Speaker 1: taken for rides. Man, good stuff. Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: good one man, good pick. If you want to know
Speaker 1: more about wine fraud, you can type those words in
Speaker 1: the search bar how stu works dot com? And I
Speaker 1: said the search bar, Chuck, what is it? Time for
Speaker 1: Facebook questions? All right? Sometimes we pool questions from Facebook
Speaker 1: to answer them. That's what we're doing now. This is
Speaker 1: from Diane Martin. Diane F. Martin, uh cent, your podcasts
Speaker 1: are essentially what would be called literature reviews and research lingo.
Speaker 1: How do you decide which references to include an exclude.
Speaker 1: Use any kind of quality indicators to decide what you
Speaker 1: will and will include, especially when they're deeply debated. This
Speaker 1: is a good question. Um, we've talked about our research process.
Speaker 1: I think we tried to use peer review journals and
Speaker 1: what I mean, if we find something on the internet,
Speaker 1: we try and double and triple check that information. I know,
Speaker 1: a big giveaway. You always talk about as if it's
Speaker 1: the same exa thing printed a bunch. That's usually a
Speaker 1: sign that it could be bogus, like Rodney danger Field
Speaker 1: being in the Scout in the movie The Scout, but
Speaker 1: it still bears mentioning. You just have to mention it
Speaker 1: with the caveat you don't find it credible, but it's
Speaker 1: out there because it doesn't. It exists in some form
Speaker 1: of fashion. Uh, scientific journals, medical journals, I mean, pure
Speaker 1: of you. It's just a great way to go if
Speaker 1: you can get your hands on it. I remember this
Speaker 1: great article called like why is Science behind a Paywall?
Speaker 1: About the basically the cart the science publishing cartel. But
Speaker 1: if you can't get your hands on on perio of stuff,
Speaker 1: that's the best stuff to work with. Agreed, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Another question. Yeah, Chuck for me, this is from Shane Elliott.
Speaker 1: I knew I think you meant no. This question will
Speaker 1: find a special place in Chuck's heart. What are your
Speaker 1: favorite types and kinds of beers? And why do you
Speaker 1: brew your own beer? And so body he else said
Speaker 1: recently on Twitter that you said in the beer episode
Speaker 1: that you're gonna get into homebrewing. Did you ever? So
Speaker 1: that's a two part question for you, Chuck from Twitter
Speaker 1: and Facebook. Well, you're a beer guy too. I like,
Speaker 1: I do not brew my beer, but on the record,
Speaker 1: is really liking I p a s. I know there's
Speaker 1: a backlash going on now because there's so many of
Speaker 1: them and people are like, there's other kinds of beers
Speaker 1: in the world. I PAS tastes like soap I love.
Speaker 1: I love anything that's super hoppy. Yeah, I do. I
Speaker 1: just that's what I like. Our friend Dave dropped by
Speaker 1: yeah Sweetwater, sweetwater and brought us some hot hash. I
Speaker 1: haven't tried it yet, have you, no, but his all
Speaker 1: that stuff is good. Sweetwater does a great job. And
Speaker 1: we've always both kind of agreed that, uh, Sierra Nevada
Speaker 1: Palele is one of the great all time, but there's
Speaker 1: so many great ones. Bells too hearted, I love oh man,
Speaker 1: that might be the best ever. Yeah, and that plenty
Speaker 1: of the elder we got sent some of that. That
Speaker 1: was delicious. Um Oh here in Athens, Georgia, Creature comforts tropically,
Speaker 1: I've not had that one delicious um orfe Is Brewing
Speaker 1: is here in Atlanta, and they make a sour that
Speaker 1: I tried that was really really good. I'm not into
Speaker 1: the sours. Have you tried it sours? Yeah? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: loved it. I don't get it weird that I was like,
Speaker 1: this is kind of good. Yeah. It was weird in
Speaker 1: a good way, because sometimes weird can just be novel
Speaker 1: and you're like, Okay, I tried that, it's done. This
Speaker 1: is I mean, I like it. Yeah. I don't like
Speaker 1: wheat beers, Belgian whites. Not a fan. All right, there's
Speaker 1: your answer, fish Bowl. Now I'm thirsty, Jackson Blig. Other
Speaker 1: than Atlanta, what are your top five favorite cities each? Geez,
Speaker 1: New York, San Francisco, Seattle? Do they have to be
Speaker 1: American cities? Serious? Uh? In that case, then I'll throw
Speaker 1: in Paris and uh London, look at me, Well, fancy,
Speaker 1: I know. Uh let's see. I love Hiroshima, Japan is
Speaker 1: a really neat city, so it's Kyoto. I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: those tied for one though. Of course. New York, Um,
Speaker 1: let's see you where I like d see a lot too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great town. Um, Rome, Italy is surprisingly neat. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: what are you getting? I mean it's a major cities, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's packed with people, so you would think like
Speaker 1: it's a city, but it also has I mean like
Speaker 1: you're just walking along the street and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you're walking next to like a three thousand year
Speaker 1: old wall that's not even part of a museum. You
Speaker 1: just built up around it. Did There'd be like a
Speaker 1: fountain on a corner, like somebody's peeing in that's a
Speaker 1: thousand years old. It's it's a very neat city in
Speaker 1: that regard. Um, I like, uh where else? Um, that's
Speaker 1: all I can come up with right now. Oh you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't have to go all fancy pants
Speaker 1: like Charleston, South Carolina one of my favorite, but it's
Speaker 1: a great place for food. Savannah, Yeah, I like Charlestoniana. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're similar to me. Yeah, Charleston is a little more
Speaker 1: refined but also a little more modern. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. It's not fancy pants to like cities overseas, No,
Speaker 1: I know. But when it's once his Paris, you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but Paris is awesome. It is. It's a great time
Speaker 1: in London. When's the last time you're in London, like
Speaker 1: twenty years ago? Okay, you should go back because London
Speaker 1: is like a brand new city. There's something to do
Speaker 1: at all times. Now they have cabs, which is apparently
Speaker 1: like the big thing that changed there. Um, and it's
Speaker 1: just an awesome little town, beautiful. Well maybe we can
Speaker 1: go there on a tour. Yes. Uh, well that's your
Speaker 1: turn with a question. Uh, this is from Gus M. Parker.
Speaker 1: Why did Josh grow his hair? Gus, there's a simple
Speaker 1: answer that that's a good question because I can't because
Speaker 1: I realized that I have hair, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: live it up while I got it. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: with Gary Rickleman, what is the best flavor of pop tart? Hint?
Speaker 1: There was only one correct answer. That's not true, Gary.
Speaker 1: I think what the answer you're looking for is brown
Speaker 1: sugar and cinnamon. It's a good one. There's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with blueberry or strawberry. Strawberries really good as frosted straws
Speaker 1: as long as its frosted. That's the key. Well, here's
Speaker 1: another key, And here's a tip for you that don't
Speaker 1: mind clogging your arteries. Pop it out of the toaster.
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to get a stick of
Speaker 1: butter and rub it on the back the dry side
Speaker 1: and then around the edges of the other side and
Speaker 1: just thank me later. I have not tried that. And
Speaker 1: I actually heard that before from Jessica Simpson when she
Speaker 1: was pregnant. Oh really, apparently is went berserk on the
Speaker 1: buttered pop tarts. I've never heard of that. You've got
Speaker 1: time for one more? Yeah, we got time for a
Speaker 1: couple of mornings. This uh an unusual one from Michael
Speaker 1: Snively or Snoopiley, one of the two, probably Snively. If
Speaker 1: the Bryant and Clark were units of measure, what would
Speaker 1: they measure? Oh? Man, mine would probably Oh I know
Speaker 1: what mine would be is some uh sweat level, like
Speaker 1: units of sweat per square inch or something. That's a
Speaker 1: good one. Mine would measure the distance between any one
Speaker 1: place and awesome, Oh wow, whoa how is that? That's good,
Speaker 1: thank you, all right. I got one more, Chelsea Hamilton.
Speaker 1: What's the most rewarding thing that Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: has brought to you or allowed you to do. We've
Speaker 1: done a lot of really neat things that were very
Speaker 1: thankful for. But I'm gonna just say the live shows
Speaker 1: because they're so much fun, fun, and it's fun to
Speaker 1: go to cities I've never been to, and it's fun
Speaker 1: to meet people and get out of this little room. Uh,
Speaker 1: very rewarding and very fun. I'm going with Chuck's answers. Welcome,
Speaker 1: all right. Uh, well, thanks everybody for those Facebook questions. UM,
Speaker 1: if you ever want to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: on Facebook, you can go to Facebook dot com slash
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. You can also tweet to us
Speaker 1: at s y s K podcast let's our handle. You
Speaker 1: can send us a good old fashioned email to stuff
Speaker 1: Podcast at house touff works dot com, and as always,
Speaker 1: join us at our home on the web. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, is a house Stuff Works dot com