WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Wine Fraud Works 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:04.000 Happy Saturday everyone. This is Chuck from Stuff you Should Know, 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:06.800 and welcome to my select pick for the week. This 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:10.360 is from October fift two thousand fifteen, and it's called 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.880 How Wine Fraud Works. And I selected this because spend 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.240 a minute since I've listened to it, and I love wine, 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:18.759 as you know, and I hate wine fraud as you 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.080 probably know as well. So let's learn about it together. 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.200 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of my 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:34.640 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.239 I'm Josh Clark. There's Child's of w Chuck Bryant and 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:41.040 no little bit even this Stuff you Should Know. Man, 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.120 that coffee smells good? You want something? Have a sip? No, 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.000 I'm fine, but just I just love that smells so nice, 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:50.760 even though I don't drink much coffee. Oh yeah, I'm 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.360 with you. You know, it's just a delicious smell. Sometimes 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.760 I'll go to a department store and just walk through 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.680 the fragrance s aisle and just smell the coffee samples. 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:01.400 Today open. Well, I thought you were gonna say you 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.120 go through the lingerie and just brushed up against things 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.720 after the coffee, So after the coffee, sniffing is done 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:14.119 and I can't smell anything anymore. How are you? Thanks 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:19.080 for outing me? Man, that's creepy. Yeah, I'm sure there's 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.200 weirdos out there who do that. Are you kidding me? 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:29.080 There's probably websites dedicated to it. Yeah, I'm fine. Good. Good? 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.880 Do you like wine? I love wine? How do you know, 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.679 Chuck that the wine you're drinking it's actually the wine 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:41.640 you're thinking it because nobody bothers to fraudulently rip off 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:47.960 bottle of one. Not true. Yeah, there's a famous issue 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:53.160 in the world of wine fraud watch people. Okay, um 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:55.760 from Tesco, which is I think it's just a straight 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.680 up like supermarket kim In Britain, I saw that. Actually, yeah, 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.320 you're right. And there was a Louisia dough which normally 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.000 goes for about fifteen pounds. It was selling on sale 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:08.040 for five pounds, but one of the guys who purchased 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:10.760 it contacted some people who are into wine and said, 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.080 I think this is phony because the label looks like 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.040 it's a photo copy. So somebody was doing knock off 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.560 Luisia dough which normally goes for not that much, and 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:23.880 sold it to Tesco, who was in turn selling it. 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.480 And this is a huge thing, and there's a big, 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:31.960 big debate even still and just how widespread wine fraud is. 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.560 And it's really difficult to get to the bottom of 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.040 because there's so many people who have their fingers in 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:43.679 this fraudulent pot, whether wittingly or unwittingly, in either way, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.920 are unwilling to admit that it's as extensive as it is, 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.959 or the people who are burned are making a bigger 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.720 deal out of it than they are than it really is, 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.519 because they have the money in the context to get 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.079 CBS to do a story on how they got burned 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.320 by buying some fake wine. So it's not entirely clear 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.960 how widespread it is. But there have been some really great, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:14.520 very famous, almost proven stories of outright wine fraud. But 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.680 it's a pretty new phenomenon. Uh well, if you think 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.480 ancient Rome is pretty new, let's hear it man. Well 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:23.800 that's I mean there ever, since there was wine, people 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.480 were making fake wine or trumping it up as something 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.560 other than it was. So the newer practice, like you 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.120 can divide it into two things. There was an ancient 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.640 room they were doing stuff like this and adding like 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.920 lead to wine. To sweeten it while they were killing people. Uh. 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:44.360 But then there's the new practice of like, hey, this 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.640 is a Thomas Jefferson bottle of wine and you can 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.840 bide it to Christie's auction for a hundred thousand dollars 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.120 and it's really not that at all. Do you remember 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.920 back in the eighties, Um, I think Reo Needy was 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:00.280 adding like when you wipe her fluid or something. Yeah, 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:02.920 it was at the at least an urban legend. More recently, 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:04.800 there was something added to wine to make it sweeter 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.600 that was really bad for you. But I don't know, 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.680 I can't confirm if it was that case or No, 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.680 this was specifically re Needy in the eighties. And it again, 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:14.440 it could have just been an urban legend because it's 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:16.640 at the same time that there were spiders eggs in 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.760 bubble yum. You know. Yeah, there was a lot of 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:24.000 like a consumer uh panic. I think. Yeah, it was 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.760 a golden age for urban legends. Yeah, agreed. Uh. And 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.680 you know what we need to do one on wine period? Yes, 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.680 this is so us. Yeah, we'll do episodes on everything 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.159 but the actual thing, and then we'll finally get to 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.440 the thing. And we could also probably do a completely 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:46.560 separate podcast on wine tasting, because man, that's a really 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.560 bitter pill. Because there are some people who say there 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.000 really is no difference in these wines, and there have 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.760 been numerous occasions over the years where jerks have set 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:04.640 up wine tasters to fail by just switching out wines 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:06.800 and saying, this is a really nice bottle. What's really 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.600 crappy and they say, whoa, this is lovely. The tannins 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:11.839 are really coming in. It's jammie and full, and they're like, 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.440 you're drinking too buck chuck. Um. People love that stuff 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.440 that it's a big bone of contention with wine drinkers 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.360 and also people who like to poop poo that right 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:23.839 and say it's all subjective and you're all just snooty 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:25.880 and either really is no difference, but there really is 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.599 a difference. Well, okay, so there is a like you say, 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.520 there's there's a big debate over that, right, um, But 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.120 if you if you dive into the world of high 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:42.440 end vintage wine collecting, it is very um it's like 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.039 an aura borus, right, that snake that eats its own 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:50.320 tail in that the people who are in charge of 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:55.240 judging whether something's real or not are basing that on 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.680 their previous experiences, which may or may not have been 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.280 in experience with the fraudulent wine. So even if you 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.080 can tell the difference, if you've only been exposed to, say, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:12.279 fraudulent eight century wine, then when you are asked to 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:16.120 judge a bottle of eighteenth century wine, you're gonna compare 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.440 it to that, and if it's ultimately coming from the 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.279 same counterfeitter, you will be like, yes, this is the 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.120 real thing, because I've had that before and it tastes 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.520 like that. Well, yeah, And here's the other thing. Is 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:33.919 there there is vintage, uh, appropriately aged wine that is 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.480 tastes great because it has aged in such a way, 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.799 and then there are these super old bottles that apparently 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:46.480 tastes like canned asparagus. Is the note that it brings out, 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.240 And these don't even taste that good. It's just the 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.560 fact that you can own it and show people you 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.600 don't even drink it. In most cases, you don't drink it. 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:58.839 Jefferson Wine, you have it in your collection, so you say, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.279 look at Michael Alec exactly. That's the whole point A 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:03.960 lot of people are For a lot of people, that's 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.159 the whole point it's just own this bottle. It's like 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.400 owning a piece of Thomas Jefferson. You get to show 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:13.400 off and and tell people how great you are, right exactly. So, Um, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.200 that's how a lot of wine counterfeiting has gotten away 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.800 with because the people are never going to open the wine, 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:23.560 So whatever tampering you did with the seal is never 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.280 going to be discovered. Um, they're never gonna taste the 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.200 wine inside, so it could be two buck chalk or 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:31.840 whatever we see the cork. Yeah, Um, and they're just 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.160 they're just happy to have this thing and their status 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:38.640 to be elevated to the point where they don't really 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.920 want to know if it's a counterfeit so long as 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.680 they can walk around and tell people this is Thomas Jefferson. Right, Well, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.000 we should go ahead and start talking about Bill Coke. 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.480 He is uh, one of the other brothers. He is 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:57.160 not Charles or David Coke of the famous uh Republican 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:06.360 Coke brother fame. Yeah, billionaire supporters of the Republican Party. Yeah. Yeah, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.200 she's saying that's like the nicest way to describe them. Yeah, 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.440 it is. Uh. He is the brother, one of the 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.840 brothers who got out along with another brother. Um, not 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.560 another brother from another mother. No, they're all the same mother, 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.000 right right, Okay, Yeah, he got out of the family 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.280 business and said, you know what, I'm a billionaire. I'm 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.360 gonna what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start collecting 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.400 really rare and expensive things. Um. One thing he has 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.800 as a gun collection. He owns Custer's rifle, Billy the 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.160 Kid's pistol. Does he yea, he owns the gun that 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.640 killed Jesse James. Oh, I'm sorry, is Jesse James pistol? 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:47.640 And that gun and that what was his name, Robert Ford? Yeah? 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:53.000 And that boy was it really good? Beautifully shot as 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.520 well WIDEPS rifle dot Holiday's rifle. He has a lot 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:58.760 of vintage guns. He has a lot of very famous 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:03.480 works of art, like original Picassos and Monaise. As far 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.080 as he exactly, he sounds like a big sucker to me. 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.600 And he also owns, uh as this article says, several 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.880 hundred bottles of what he calls moose piss. Yeah, that's 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.600 what he calls it. He's he well, he's saying that 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.480 for all he knows. That's what's inside. He got duped 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.000 very famously, many many times. Yeah, and he has had 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.199 many many lawsuits over the years that have come out. 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.360 Guy loves suing people. He does what he calls dropping 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:36.000 subpoena is on people. Yeah, he sees people almost recreationally 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.600 he drops a subpoena on their head. Yeah, what a guy. 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:45.160 So he um. He bill Coke again very famously. He's 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:49.800 probably the most famous victim of wine fraud because he 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.000 sues everybody he possibly can who may or may not 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.200 have sold them a fake. Really takes it personally, and 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.320 he really goes after people. Um. And he did a 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.320 lot of media about this too, so he's very famous 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.160 for this. UM. And he brought in some wine experts 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:09.480 and said, here are thirty thousand, forty thousand bottles of 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.960 wine that I have in my cellers. How many are fake? 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:15.960 And they just took a random sample of three bottles 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.960 kidding me, no, they said exactly. They're like, we'll bill 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.480 you for this. Um. They took a random sample of 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.480 three thousand bottles and it yielded a hundred and thirty fakes. 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:32.080 So I mean he has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:38.200 by by extension, of fake bottles of wine in his cellar. 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.640 And that was actually that's about on par with what 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:49.560 the average not necessarily uninitiated or uneducated wine buyer, but 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:55.720 fervent vintage wine buyer would have that about four million 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.720 dollars seller, about a million of it will be on fakes. 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.439 And he supposed at he spent close to five million 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:06.920 dollars on fake wine over the past quarter century, um, 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.120 including some of those Jefferson's that we'll talk about. Uh. 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.120 And a lot of this wine came from a man 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:18.360 named Rudy Uh Croniawe Oh, that's good stuff. Yeah, it's 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.559 even better than I had in my head. Would you have? 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.280 I like that? I think? And this guy was one 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.440 of the most famous um really alongside another guy that 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:37.199 we'll talk about, one of the most famous wine fraud discs, fraudster, fraudster, counterfeitters, 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.439 counterfeiters of all time. Um. And he was sentenced to 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.720 ten years in prison and supposedly was to pay close 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.560 to fifty million dollars in damages, which is easily what 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:51.960 he made by selling fake wine. In two sales in 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:56.559 two thousand and six, he made thirty six million dollars 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.199 selling fake wine. What a jerk. And it's easy to 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.400 sit back and the defense team even used this in 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.920 court to say, these are rich guys, like, no harm, 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.960 no foul, who cares very if you're ripping off the rich. 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.360 And I even found myself kind of thinking that. But 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.800 at the end of the day, who it's wrong. It's wrong. 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:19.719 It's wrong. Sure, I mean like I wouldn't do it. 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.839 I wouldn't sell a counterfeit bottle of wine. Yeah, it's wrong, 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.199 it's illegal, and it's it's gross. And just because you're 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.080 ripping off the rich, it's not like he's Robin Hood 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.960 and giving that then to the poor. You know, he 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.800 was him. I didn't have the idea that he was 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.160 doing that. Plus Um, Dave Rouse, who wrote this, made 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.040 this point, but I take issue with it that ultimately 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:48.320 vintage counterfeit wine fraud affects all wine drinkers because that 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.360 stuff trickles down. I don't think that's true. Because from 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.520 reading this UM, there are two really great long form 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.439 articles that this article was partially based on when was 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.080 in The New Yorker, and one was on Vanity Fair, 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.960 and both of them were totally worth reading. Um. But 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.640 just from reading those you get the impression that those 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:12.760 are two very different worlds, that the world of like 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:19.599 just regular wine appreciation and vintage wine collection form of 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:24.240 Venn diagram that just barely overlaps, and that one really 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.800 does not affect the economy the economics of the other. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.959 So if there's a bunch of counterfeit stuff going on 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.080 in the vintage wine world, it probably wouldn't drive up 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.840 prices for the wine that you're buying that's, you know, 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.679 ten years old tops. So I don't think that that's 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.080 necessarily true his point that we all shoulder the burden 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.000 that counterfeiters do because these two worlds are so divorced. 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.800 But even still, like if you were a people are 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.600 losing money and reputations are being built up and lost. 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:57.679 You know, I get that. All right, Well, let's take 0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:59.720 a little break and we'll come back and uh, we'll 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.240 talk about the two ways that you can generally go 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:24.920 about trying to fake a wine. All right, we're back. 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.160 We're drunk on wine. It's so drunk. I wish what's 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:37.080 your favorite wine? Uh? My favorite wines are big bodied 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:42.680 California cabernets generally, like not a specific like wine maker. 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.360 If that's what you're asking, I'm not gonna like, Yeah, 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:47.520 there was no wrong answer. Yeah, No, Well what was 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.800 that funny? Because it made me think of fat bottom girls, 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:56.240 that Queen song. Big bodied California. Yeah, it just potts 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.040 in my head and I laughed like a goon. Yeah, 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:03.360 I like really full bodied wines, zim Fidel's and Cabernets. Yeah, 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.200 I think California is just they're doing it right. You know. 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.800 They say Pa titzeras the Rodney danger field in the 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.880 wine world. I've heard that. So if you're gonna go 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:16.120 about faking a wine, um you uh, there are two 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.240 things you can do. You can either fake the wine 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.400 inside a real bottle or you can fake the bottle 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.080 with real wine. Yeah, and it's all real wine, you know, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.160 different vintage maybe yeah, but like it could be like 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:33.440 a really nice nineteen seven wine that you say it's 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.280 actually from nineteen fourteen or even one. I mean like 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.480 it could be within a couple of years. It ends 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.240 on whether it was a good year, good point or 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.480 if the if there's a scarcity of it, that kind 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:47.880 of stuff. And actually Bill Cooke makes a pretty good point. 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.880 His whole thing is he wants to have I think 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.520 a hundred and fifty years of Lafitte or some some 0:15:54.600 --> 0:16:00.240 house like every single vintage that they released of every 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.320 single variety over the course of a hundred and fifty years, 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.720 which is extremely ambitious. And he said, it's easy to 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.840 get the really prized ones because those are the ones 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:12.440 that like people saved and all that. He said, it's 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.840 the mediocre years that are old that nobody bothered to 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:17.920 say this, drank and throw away the bottle or or 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.520 just didn't keep it. Those are the ones that he 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.280 has the most trouble finding. Or they did skeet shooting. 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.200 They just had the servants stowed up in the air 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.040 and then shot him with shotguns. That's what they do. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.840 Richie Riches. Uh, well, you make a good point too, 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.360 because Colnie Allen, although he dealt in the super high echelon, 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.720 he would also take a two bottle of wine and 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.280 fake it to be like a thousand dollar bottle. Yeah, 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:42.480 he did it both ways. He would he would take 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.880 out he would take an old bottle, legitimate real bottle, 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.880 put in his own mix of wine and cork it 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.240 again and make it look like it had never been open. 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.640 Or like you said, he would take just say a 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.680 forty seven Lafitte and mess with the label to make 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:00.480 it look like a forty one Lafitte, which would be 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.520 worth ten times that what the forty seven Lafitte would 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.960 be worth. Right, and clearly, I also want to point 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:10.440 out Lafitte is obviously the only fancy wine that I'm 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.000 familiar with, because that's my go too. So if you 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.240 guys are out there and you're getting the impression that 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.240 I know what I'm talking about as far as wine goes, 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:20.880 you have been duped. Well, you're not a big wine guy. 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.120 You're on record as such. I like wine. I'm I'm 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:28.960 definitely not a wine guy exactly. Yeah. Uh, And I'm 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.920 not wine guy either. I'm I'm at the very i'm 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.639 wine guy in the their sense of the word. I 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.639 like really good wines. I like going to wineries, but 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.320 I'm certainly no like. I'm not saying I have some 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.720 amazing palette. I can't pick out vanilla notes and things 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:47.880 like that. I'm just like, man, this tastes really good 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:50.800 for up the bottle of it. And I tend to 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.720 fall into that camp where I'm certain that there are 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:58.280 people out there, literal tastemakers who can tell the difference 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.920 between wine and I've had had wine that I didn't 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.160 like before, I've had wine that I do like. Um, 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.640 but I fall into the camp where I'm ultimately like 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.680 it's it's whatever you appreciate. It's no hierarchy. There doesn't 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.240 need to be. Um, you know, a two thousand dollar 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.359 bottle is not necessarily going to taste as good as 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.160 a twenty dollar bottle. That that you The whole thing 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.920 is just about individual enjoyment and a kind of snobbery 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.560 associated with it to me just misses the point. Yeah, 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.320 here's my deal is. I can really tell the difference 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.600 between what I would consider a cheap wine and like 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.080 a decent bottle or a good bottle. But that's where 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.040 my taste level max is out. I can't tell the 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:46.080 difference between a two bottle and at bottle. But if 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.840 you gave me like a six dollar bottle, you can. 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:50.879 You can taste the difference it's between that and like 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.560 a twenty bottle. Yeah, but even then, if that's what 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:55.760 you like, that's what you like. I'm not. It's just 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.480 not what I want, right, you know. Man, a lot 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:05.320 of caveats there. So Um. We were talking about Rudy kay, yeah, 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.439 and how to how to he faked wines and he 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:12.080 he got real bottles correct in general, and made his 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.960 own wine concoctions. Here's what this dude did right to 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.359 get to the point where he could even counterfeit. Yes, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.120 he got his hands on real stuff, and he ran 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:25.560 up some serious, serious bar tabs while he was doing it. 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:30.320 There's a very um legendary story of him hooking up 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.560 with this guy who was the head of wine sales 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:42.520 at a UM, a an auction house called Acker Meryll. 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.639 They factor in big time into this guy's ascent and 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:50.920 Rudy Kay's counterfeit ascent, not weddingly necessarily, but they they 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:56.000 let him used their reputation to build his own. But 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.080 he did it by duping them by throwing like these 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:03.680 crazy parties at like uhum at um restaurants and having 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.480 like two fifty thou dollar tabs, picking up the tab himself. 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.080 But then after everybody left, going to the staff at 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.439 the restaurant being like, mail me every single one of 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.960 those bottles, and they go, well, okay, it's your wine, 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.480 but that's weird, not enough to make mention of it, 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:22.159 but it was odd to them. His big thing was 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:24.280 that he did it at the same place over and 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.640 over again, so they did start to notice. But while 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.040 he was doing this, he was also collecting wine to 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.200 really expensive vintage wine, and there was already a market 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.359 for it, but it didn't look anything like the market 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:41.800 that he built almost himself. He drove the value of 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.840 vintage wine up, almost singlehandedly by buying up as many 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:49.320 bottles of old stuff as he could. Um. And while 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.520 he was doing that, he was building his reputation. He 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:53.960 was making connections, and he was getting his hands on 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.159 legitimate wine that he could use to resell now that 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:01.119 the market was up at a higher price, after he 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.200 had already consumed it. It say like a party. Yeah. 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.520 And one thing he was doing that tipped off some 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.639 people early on was um like you were saying. He 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:14.760 was buying off years of good vintages, great vintages, to 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.520 where there was one guy who thinks Jeffrey Troy was 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:19.760 his name. He was a wine merchant, and he said 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.320 he was buying these good bottles for French Burgundy, but 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:25.800 they weren't great, they were off years, and it was 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.000 just if he was a collector, it was just weird 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.120 to buy these, uh, and to be adamant about buying 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.000 these because he could get him for cheaper and fake 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.800 them easier exactly, like he could just kind of smudge 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.040 the year and all of a sudden it's a much 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:42.960 more expensive vintage. UM. So he's he's driving the market up. 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.560 He's buying legitimate wine. Apparently he's taking out loans that 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:50.879 he defaulted on to to build this reputation is um 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.080 and so when the market hits he starts counterfeiting. And 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.320 there was one story that actually was pretty prominent in 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:04.199 the Vanity Fair article where he was apparently confused. He thought, 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.000 and there's no way that any of us would have 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:12.040 ever thought this, but he thought that a Ponceau close 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:16.439 Saint Denis was the same thing as the Christine ponce 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:20.560 So close St. Denis. Right, he was way off. So 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:25.760 it turns out that um, he figured that ponce Uh 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:29.720 made this wine in Burgundy in the forties, because Christine 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:32.800 ponce So close Aint Denis made this wine in the fourties. 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:37.960 Turns out that the regular Ponceo, the very famous Ponceau family, 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.080 made their close End Denis starting in the eighties. So 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.040 he actually got found out because of this one mistake. 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.639 This led to his unraveling, and he was going to 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:51.720 auction or sell about like nine bottles of this stuff 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:56.240 that was overtly counterfeit. It had never existed, which also 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:58.960 said a lot about the collectors at the time too, 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.479 because they were coming and paying for wine that they 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:05.320 never even heard of. It didn't exist strictly because these 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:08.679 these people were attached to it. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:10.399 it really is. And that's how he was able to 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:12.320 get away with it for so long because that dinner, 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:16.159 the guy Ponceau himself, um, the guy who was the 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:18.960 proprietor of the vineyard, showed up at that dinner, flew 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:21.800 from Paris to I think New York to be at 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:24.080 the dinner to make sure that they didn't auction off 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.760 those things because he knew they were counterfeit. And Rudy 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.119 Kay still was left to just keep going for years 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:35.680 after that because because of reputations. Well, and like you said, 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:37.720 he had built up this reputation, which is a big 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:40.280 part of it. Um, you have to be a true 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:43.480 con artist. You can't just go in there, uh and say, 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:47.040 I've got all these Jefferson wines. I'm chuck. You know, 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:49.320 you have to be known in the community, and it 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:51.240 takes a long time, and they have to think of 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:53.480