Speaker 1: Guess what mango? What's that? Will? All right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you about a little experiment. You know, I love
Speaker 1: to tell you about experiments, Right, So this was one
Speaker 1: that took place back in two thousand one, and there
Speaker 1: were fifty four undergrads and this was at the University
Speaker 1: of Bordeaux. So they were studying wine tasting and wine
Speaker 1: making and they were training to be experts on and
Speaker 1: kind of naturally interested in the subject of wine. And
Speaker 1: so during this specific study, there was a researcher that
Speaker 1: was asking students to describe one glass of white wine
Speaker 1: and one glass of red wine. And these were both
Speaker 1: just sitting right in front of them. But of course
Speaker 1: there's a trick here, so they didn't know that the
Speaker 1: glass of red was actually just a glass of white
Speaker 1: wine with a little bit of food coloring. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like I can already guess how this ends.
Speaker 1: Like none of them knew was white wine they were drinking, right,
Speaker 1: and it uh. It kind of reminds you of that
Speaker 1: commercial from Pizza Hut where they served this pasta in
Speaker 1: Italy and they tried to rebrand themselves as Pasta Hut,
Speaker 1: and no one knew it was from pizza Hut. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that was so tricky, And I'm sure those sudies were
Speaker 1: equally scientific, but but you're right, like, not one of
Speaker 1: the fifty four kids could tell the white wine was white.
Speaker 1: And as they were writing down their notes, they were
Speaker 1: looking for the features that you would typically find and reds,
Speaker 1: and even convincing themselves that they were tasting those notes
Speaker 1: and the drink. Now, honestly, normally, I don't like these
Speaker 1: kinds of studies because I don't love people feeling like
Speaker 1: they've been tricked, and especially with things like art or wine,
Speaker 1: where they're already feeling intimidated by the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody should get to enjoy those things
Speaker 1: without worry. But today's show is all about wine crimes,
Speaker 1: you know, the forgeries and frauds and the wine world,
Speaker 1: and it is a fascinating world. And the thing that's
Speaker 1: so interesting to me about these cons is that the
Speaker 1: people really really want to believe they're drinking or buying
Speaker 1: the good stuff, even when it's really smart people drinking
Speaker 1: a very obvious white wine and drops of food coloring
Speaker 1: or just placed in it. And that's what today's show
Speaker 1: is all about. Let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer
Speaker 1: and on the other side of the soundproof glass decanting
Speaker 1: a bottle of what is that? It's Bartels and James
Speaker 1: man the Wild Island Wine Spritzer, and I think he
Speaker 1: ordered it on eBay. He was saying, that's our friend
Speaker 1: and producer Tristan McNeil. I'm pretty sure that's just a
Speaker 1: bottle of grape soda that he put a bartls On
Speaker 1: James label on. And uh, we know your tricks, Tristan,
Speaker 1: so you can't fool us, Triston. But today's episode is
Speaker 1: obviously about wine and wine crimes. But did you know
Speaker 1: that grape juice is actually a man made invention? So
Speaker 1: I didn't gave actually pointed this out to me. But
Speaker 1: just think about it, like if the juice from a
Speaker 1: bunch of grace was to somehow pool in the wild,
Speaker 1: it would start to ferment on its own. So in
Speaker 1: order to make grape juice, we actually have to halt
Speaker 1: their natural fermentation process to stop it from being alcoholic.
Speaker 1: So there's no such thing as all natural grape juice,
Speaker 1: no matter what the labels tell you. You know, I've
Speaker 1: actually never thought about that, and that is a pretty
Speaker 1: benign case of of mislabeling. But there's so many other
Speaker 1: interesting stories of you know, many more nefarious examples, including
Speaker 1: one of history's first wine crimes. And I know you
Speaker 1: were doing some digging into this, So do you want
Speaker 1: to give us the scoop? Yeah, definitely, I can do that.
Speaker 1: So wine itself is something that's been around pretty much forever.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can go back as far as seven
Speaker 1: thousand b C. And the Chinese were actually making wine
Speaker 1: from fermented honey and rice and fruit. The Phoenicians were
Speaker 1: getting in the act. They were producing and trading their
Speaker 1: own versions throughout the Mediterranean. And for as long as
Speaker 1: humans have been making wine, there have also been those
Speaker 1: have been manipulating or counterfeiting it for their own game.
Speaker 1: And you can actually see this in ancient Rome. So
Speaker 1: the Romans complained about phony wine flowing through the country,
Speaker 1: and in fact, Pliny the Elder once wrote about the problem, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: not even our nobility ever enjoys wines that are genuine.
Speaker 1: So wine forgeries have been this widespread problem from the start,
Speaker 1: which you know must have been really disheartening for Pliny
Speaker 1: the Elder. So so why do you say that? Well,
Speaker 1: he was also the Roman scholar who coined the famous
Speaker 1: phrase in vino veritas or in wine, there is truth,
Speaker 1: so he probably didn't appreciate people meddling with the wine
Speaker 1: or his aphorism. I like the fact that I think
Speaker 1: we've quoted Pliny the Elder maybe three times on this
Speaker 1: show before we got real Plenty here. We we love Pliny,
Speaker 1: or at least quoting Plenty. But alright, so so fake
Speaker 1: wine was definitely flowing through Rome. But but how exactly
Speaker 1: did the scam work? So basically, counterfeiters would sometimes claim
Speaker 1: a wine was made from a certain kind of grape
Speaker 1: or even produced in a specific region, that it really wasn't. So.
Speaker 1: For example, like the most popular wine and ancient Rome
Speaker 1: was fail Aian wine, which was made from grapes grown
Speaker 1: on the slopes of this and this wine was somewhat
Speaker 1: rare and pretty expensive, but before long there were all
Speaker 1: these local bars serving up a never ending supply of
Speaker 1: it at super cheap prices, And while plenty of people
Speaker 1: couldn't tell the difference, there were these people with more
Speaker 1: discerning palettes like Pliny, who caught on pretty quickly. So
Speaker 1: I'm guessing though, that wouldn't exactly stop the counterfeiters. Though,
Speaker 1: no it didn't. I mean, wine forgers only became more
Speaker 1: common as time went on, which really prompted governments to
Speaker 1: crack down on the crimes. So in London during the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, you actually see tavern owners had to store
Speaker 1: their French, Spanish and German wines and separate containers and
Speaker 1: separate areas, so it would be harder for them to
Speaker 1: mix the wines or even to lie about where a
Speaker 1: certain wine came from. And if a bar keep was
Speaker 1: caught serving fraud wine like, the punishment was that they
Speaker 1: had to drink every single drop of it themselves. What
Speaker 1: a harsh punish. I mean, I guess if it was
Speaker 1: fake wine, it probably didn't taste great, but that that
Speaker 1: really doesn't seem like that bad of a punishment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess some of the wine could have
Speaker 1: been off or whatever. But Germany actually had a much
Speaker 1: harsher policy wine counterfeiters there. It could be branded or
Speaker 1: even hanged, and it depended on how much fraudulent wine
Speaker 1: they were selling and who they've been selling it to. Alright,
Speaker 1: so let me get this straight. So in one country
Speaker 1: you could be looking at a punishment of having to
Speaker 1: drink some pretty bad wine, and then another country you
Speaker 1: might actually be hanged for the crime. I mean there
Speaker 1: was a lot of bad wine. Yes, must have been
Speaker 1: really bad so all right. So so then if we're
Speaker 1: talking about multiple places that this kind of fraud was
Speaker 1: rampant all across Europe or what it definitely was. And
Speaker 1: during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there is even this
Speaker 1: group of so called wine doctors who started producing their
Speaker 1: own makeshift wines from chemicals and all sorts of random
Speaker 1: fruits like apples or even raisins, and then they try
Speaker 1: to pass the stuff off as this really prestigious wine
Speaker 1: from far away regions. And this actually became such a
Speaker 1: huge problem that European government started cracking down on it.
Speaker 1: So you know, the British Parliament took a stab at it.
Speaker 1: They passed this Adulteration of Food and Drink Act in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty. Alright, So did this just put a complete
Speaker 1: style up to the whole wine fraud business or what
Speaker 1: or not at all? I mean the added scrutiny and
Speaker 1: growing awareness of why fraud mostly just got criminals to
Speaker 1: think more creatively about the whole business. I did read
Speaker 1: about this amazing American wine scam that grape growers started
Speaker 1: during Prohibition, and it was actually pretty clever. So at
Speaker 1: the time, the Volstead Act made it so that, you know,
Speaker 1: that grapes could only be grown if they were to
Speaker 1: be used for nonalcoholic consumption, like you know, eating on
Speaker 1: their own or made into grape juice or I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, non alcoholic wine. And so this left American
Speaker 1: grape growers with two pretty bad options. They could either
Speaker 1: like rip out all their grapevines and plan a different crop,
Speaker 1: or try to sell the grape some other way and
Speaker 1: then just you know, kind of hope that there would
Speaker 1: be a constitutional amendment that would come along later. And
Speaker 1: so now some owners chose the first, of course, and
Speaker 1: that was the much safer option, and they immediately started
Speaker 1: replacing their grapevines with orchards. But you have these other
Speaker 1: former winemakers who decided to try, you know, that the
Speaker 1: second option, and ultimately that's what actually saved the entire
Speaker 1: California wine industry. I mean, that's pretty fascinating, but it
Speaker 1: was grape juice that popular, Like, how are they still
Speaker 1: doing good business during this time? No, I mean, grape
Speaker 1: juice was not that popular. And so basically, the grape
Speaker 1: growers they would they they found a loophole. Actually, it
Speaker 1: was perfectly legal to produce. It was so called non
Speaker 1: alcoholic wine that could theoretically be turned into real wine
Speaker 1: by the consumers. So the only catch was they had
Speaker 1: to make it clear that fermenting the wine would be illegal.
Speaker 1: So with this in mind, the vineyards started selling these
Speaker 1: quote wine bricks, and they were basically just these big
Speaker 1: chunks of grape concentrate that came bundled with a packet
Speaker 1: of yeast. I mean, that's ridiculous. It's like the blue
Speaker 1: apron of wine or Hello Fresh who sponsored the show.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go with that, that's right. The bricks
Speaker 1: also came with a warning label that warned consumers against,
Speaker 1: you know, combining the concentrate in yeast with water and
Speaker 1: sugar in a sealed pot and then and then letting
Speaker 1: that pot sit in a cooled cover for twenty one
Speaker 1: day straight. And so it more than they should definitely
Speaker 1: not do that, or else they you know, wind up
Speaker 1: with an alcoholic beverage, even if it was a delicious
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverage, they should definitely not do this. It feels
Speaker 1: like very specific instructions on what not to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so subtle, right, but I mean it actually worked
Speaker 1: incredibly well for the grape growers and kept them afloat
Speaker 1: during America's failed attempt at sobriety. And so wine concentrates
Speaker 1: like this had actually been sold pre prohibition for a
Speaker 1: little less than ten dollars a ton, but just four
Speaker 1: years into prohibition, the price had increased by nearly four
Speaker 1: thousand percent and they were selling for almost four hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a ton. And so it was this rise and
Speaker 1: profits that attracted new grape growers to Napa Valley, and
Speaker 1: among them was Caesar Mundabi. You know, that name obviously
Speaker 1: sounds familiar to many people, and he was this Minnesota
Speaker 1: grocer who began his family's wine dynasty actually during the
Speaker 1: heart of the prohibition era. That's amazing, and I actually
Speaker 1: love how the story really makes you root for winemakers,
Speaker 1: because that's not something that happens too often with wine crimes, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, especially nowadays where most wine fraud tends to
Speaker 1: be perpetrated among these high end wine collectors, and so
Speaker 1: it is a little tough to drum up sympathy when
Speaker 1: it's just like millionaires ripping off other millionaires. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know what you mean. So talking to wine frauds, did
Speaker 1: you hear about those counterfeit wines that supposedly belonged to
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson that went up for auction at Christie's in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, I don't think so. So one of
Speaker 1: the bottles, which was a seventeen eighty seven Chateau Lafitte Bordeaux,
Speaker 1: was sold to Chris and Malcolm Forbes for a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty six thousand dollars. And this is actually the
Speaker 1: most that a single bottle of wine had ever been
Speaker 1: sold for at the time. So we're talking about the
Speaker 1: Forbes family, like Forbes Magazine and all of that empire, right,
Speaker 1: and for years this phony bottle of wine was actually
Speaker 1: the pride of the Forbes collection. Apparently, when Malcolm Forbes
Speaker 1: learned that he'd won the bid, he said, and this
Speaker 1: is a direct quote, it's more fun than the opera
Speaker 1: glasses Lincoln was holding when he was shot. And I
Speaker 1: have those two, Right, that's just such an insane statement.
Speaker 1: And I guess when you're that rich, you're just looking
Speaker 1: for ways to spend your money. But the craziest thing
Speaker 1: is that the Forbes family didn't find out that they've
Speaker 1: been scammed until two decades after the fact. You know,
Speaker 1: to your earlier point, it is a little bit difficult
Speaker 1: to drum up sympathy when people are saying stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious, so why did it take these two
Speaker 1: decades to figure out they've been scamped? Partly it's because
Speaker 1: the story is just so believable. So Thomas Jefferson was
Speaker 1: famous for his love of fine food and wine, which
Speaker 1: you'd grown accustomed to during his time in Europe. Then,
Speaker 1: in fact, during his time in the White House, Jefferson
Speaker 1: actually spent over sixteen thousand dollars which is about three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in today's money, on wine, amassing a
Speaker 1: private collection of more than twenty thousand bottles. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: all that kind of sets the stage right, Like, then
Speaker 1: you've got Forbes who hears the story of a well
Speaker 1: known German wine enthusiast who supposedly like found Jefferson's wine
Speaker 1: hidden behind a brick wall in Paris, and there was
Speaker 1: little reason to doubt him. I mean, the bottles even
Speaker 1: had the right eights and the initials T h J
Speaker 1: on them, and they were etched into the bottles, so
Speaker 1: it all seemed real and that makes sense. But but
Speaker 1: how did the Forbes family figure out they've been duped? Well,
Speaker 1: the truth actually came out thanks to the efforts of
Speaker 1: a different billionaire wine collector, so basically the German forger,
Speaker 1: this guy named Hardy rodent Stock. He just wasn't content
Speaker 1: with selling one bottle that he discovered behind the wall.
Speaker 1: He also found four more bottles, which he sold for
Speaker 1: half a million dollars to William Coke and you probably
Speaker 1: recognize that name. He's the lesser known but still super
Speaker 1: wealthy Coke brother who isn't as tangled up in politics.
Speaker 1: And for a long time Coke also believed his bottles
Speaker 1: were legitimate, but that changed in two thousand five when
Speaker 1: the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston was preparing to
Speaker 1: exhibit his wine collection to the public, and basically the
Speaker 1: museum contacted the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, but none
Speaker 1: of the historians could actually verify that the bottles belonged
Speaker 1: to Jefferson. In fact, all of the evidence that they
Speaker 1: had on hand pointed to the contrary. So what kind
Speaker 1: of evidence are we talking about. Well, Jefferson actually kept
Speaker 1: meticulous records on everything, you know, Jefferson being Jefferson, and
Speaker 1: this included all the wines he'd ever bought while in France.
Speaker 1: And according to one of Monticello's senior historians, and here
Speaker 1: I'm just going to quote the note he wrote in
Speaker 1: his vast records of over sixty thousand documents, there was
Speaker 1: nothing that suggested Jefferson had ever ordered any of these wines.
Speaker 1: In the so called Jefferson bottles, there were about a
Speaker 1: dozen bottles, including seventeen eighty four and a seventeen eighty
Speaker 1: seven Chateau to Kim, a seventeen seven Lafitte or Margo.
Speaker 1: Most of them were seventeen eighty seven, a vintage Jefferson
Speaker 1: never ordered in his life. Wow. So, I mean that
Speaker 1: is pretty compelling evidence, but meticulous or not, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's always the chance that Jefferson made a mistake in
Speaker 1: his records, right, Yeah, that's true, which is why Bill
Speaker 1: Coke actually leaned on a private investigator and a former
Speaker 1: FBI agent, this guy named Jim Elroy to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of things. Alright, I definitely want to hear
Speaker 1: all this panned out. But before you cluisen, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and
Speaker 1: we're talking about the most famous wine crimes in history.
Speaker 1: All right, mango, So what happened with Elroy's investigation? I'm
Speaker 1: assuming he found a way to prove that the Jefferson
Speaker 1: wine was fake, right, So he did, but it was
Speaker 1: not easy. So at first he started looking for ways
Speaker 1: to prove that the wine itself didn't really date back
Speaker 1: to the eighteenth century. And the tricky part is finding
Speaker 1: a way to do it without opening the bottles. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, just in cases hunch was wrong. You don't
Speaker 1: want to mess up these wonderful bottles of wine. So
Speaker 1: this is kind of amazing. But Elroy found a solution
Speaker 1: in the research of this French physicist named Philip Hubert.
Speaker 1: And Hubert found a way to use low level gamma
Speaker 1: ray detection to date wine without actually having to remove
Speaker 1: it from the bottle. Wait, so how do how does
Speaker 1: that work? Basically, you try to determine if the wine
Speaker 1: contains any traces of caesium seven. And this is a
Speaker 1: radio active isotope that doesn't occur in nature. So prior
Speaker 1: to the Atomic Age, this isotope just straight up didn't
Speaker 1: exist on Earth. But after the use of nuclear bombs,
Speaker 1: it was literally everywhere, including like the atmosphere, the rain, soil, grapes,
Speaker 1: and eventually in wine. Alright, So so this test can't
Speaker 1: determine exactly when a wine was bottled, but it can
Speaker 1: at least tell you if the bottle was before or
Speaker 1: after what like the mid forties or so exactly, which
Speaker 1: would have been enough for Elroy, like if the bottles
Speaker 1: contained season one seven, then they couldn't have been bottled
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century. But Hubert's tests actually came back negative,
Speaker 1: which proved the wine had been bottled prior to the
Speaker 1: Atomic Age, though not necessarily as far back as Jefferson.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so that's a pretty good curb also, so
Speaker 1: Elroy then had to come up with a plan B.
Speaker 1: So so what did he do? Yeah, Elroy went back
Speaker 1: to the drawing board and he started assembling this crack
Speaker 1: team of wine fraudc experts, including a retired Scotland yard inspector,
Speaker 1: a former m I five agent and even a master
Speaker 1: glass engraver. And since efforts to uncover for on in
Speaker 1: the wine itself had failed, the team turned their attention
Speaker 1: to the other way to counterfeit one, which is just
Speaker 1: by messing with the bottle. And this is where the
Speaker 1: expert engraver comes in, because the team was actually able
Speaker 1: to prove that the etched initials on the bottle had
Speaker 1: been done with an electric dentist drill, which of course
Speaker 1: was not a thing in the eighteenth century. Wow, I mean,
Speaker 1: like it's so crazy that that was the deciding factor.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm kind of guessing they wish they'd looked
Speaker 1: closer at the bottle before they started doing all those seasons. Mean,
Speaker 1: as interesting as that is, because I'm guessing these physicists
Speaker 1: don't come cheap for that kind of investigation. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we didn't even get a detail there, because that part
Speaker 1: wasn't easy either. Like Elroy had personally flown to the
Speaker 1: French Italian border and he delivered the bottles in a
Speaker 1: bulletproof case and and then he barely carried out the
Speaker 1: experiment a mile underground. And this was to prevent interference
Speaker 1: from atmospheric gamma rays like it was just way more
Speaker 1: complicated than taking a closer look at the glass. But
Speaker 1: in the end, Elroy was able to prove the bottles
Speaker 1: were fraudulent, and in two thousand six Bill Coke followed
Speaker 1: the lawsuit against Hardy Rodenstock in New York. You know,
Speaker 1: the timing of all of this is also super interesting
Speaker 1: because it was around this same time, you know, you'd
Speaker 1: be looking at the opposite side of the country that
Speaker 1: probably the most notorious wine counterfeiter to date was just
Speaker 1: starting to come into his own. Yeah. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: guessing you're talking about Rudy, right, Yeah, So this is
Speaker 1: Rudy carneiloh one. And for those who aren't familiar with
Speaker 1: his story, Rudy was this mysterious young wine collector who
Speaker 1: made a name for himself in the l A wine scene.
Speaker 1: And this was in the early two thousand's. And I
Speaker 1: say mysterious because he sort of came out of nowhere
Speaker 1: and nobody really knew much about him at the time. Now,
Speaker 1: this should have raised some suspicions in this upper crust
Speaker 1: and the wine circles there that he managed to infiltrate,
Speaker 1: but you know, most of his new friends chose to
Speaker 1: ignore the mystery just on account of his deep pockets.
Speaker 1: He would often pay the bill at these lavish dinners
Speaker 1: and wine tastings, you know, for all the other enthusiasts
Speaker 1: that were there, and he seemed to have this knack
Speaker 1: for tracking down these hard to come by vintages and
Speaker 1: and to get them at these uncommonly good price. Of course, again,
Speaker 1: these folks should have and suspicious rudy, but they weren't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's sort of like that guy who made
Speaker 1: the room, Like nobody knew where he was from or
Speaker 1: how he got his money. But hey, he's generous and
Speaker 1: fun of me around, so why rock the boat with
Speaker 1: any questions? Yeah, I mean, that seems to be what
Speaker 1: was going on, and it was really all about the
Speaker 1: wine for the people that he ran with. For instance,
Speaker 1: one of the group's rudy frequented was called angry Men,
Speaker 1: and they called themselves that because of how mad they
Speaker 1: would get whenever they took a nice bottle of wine
Speaker 1: to a party, only to find out that everyone else
Speaker 1: had brought the cheap stuff, you know, So that these
Speaker 1: angry Men dinners, all the guests would bring these really
Speaker 1: fancy and expensive bottles of wine, and everyone would just
Speaker 1: get schlaushed, and they would drink as much as like
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars worth of wine in a single evening.
Speaker 1: Two dollars that's insane. Yeah, I haven't drunk that much
Speaker 1: in one night ever. Yes, yeah, dropping those big bills.
Speaker 1: But you know, it wasn't long before Rudy got into
Speaker 1: the auction scene and and sort of became the go
Speaker 1: to guy for rare Burgundy, and he was buying and
Speaker 1: selling some of the finest wines of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: and making bank in the process. And his biggest payday
Speaker 1: came in two thousand and six when he sold almost
Speaker 1: twenty five million dollars worth of wine in a single auction. Now,
Speaker 1: the previous sales record had been something like fifteen million,
Speaker 1: so we're talking a huge gain on that. But the
Speaker 1: writing was already on the wall. So a year or
Speaker 1: two later, a bunch of bottles of this rare burgundy
Speaker 1: from the domain Ponsant wine House. They began to appear,
Speaker 1: with vintages dating between nineteen forty five and nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: and the head of this winery, Lauren Posas, found this
Speaker 1: to be exceptionally odd because his family hadn't started making
Speaker 1: this particular red wine until nineteen eighty two. So, knowing
Speaker 1: something was up, he launched his own international investigation into
Speaker 1: Rudy's shady dealings. Now, he did this mostly as a
Speaker 1: way to defend the good name of Burgundy. As he
Speaker 1: later told a reporter, the fakes are like a piece
Speaker 1: of dirt on the name of Burgundy, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to wash it off. I mean, that's funny growing from
Speaker 1: a wine growing region, like the idea of dirt on
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem that bad. But I love his intensity
Speaker 1: and and his love for Burgundy. I mean, his family
Speaker 1: name was on the line too. But around the same
Speaker 1: time Ponceaux was conducting his investigation, you look across the pond,
Speaker 1: You've got Bill Coke, who was launching another one of
Speaker 1: his own. So he'd been burned so badly on his
Speaker 1: Jefferson bottles that Coke started scouring his collection for other
Speaker 1: potential fakes, and he actually found dozens, I mean, many
Speaker 1: of which had come directly or at least indirectly from Rudy. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: more and more suspicious bottles were popping up at auctions,
Speaker 1: and this was drawing the attention of the FBI as well.
Speaker 1: So I've actually read about the raid on Rudy's condo
Speaker 1: back in two thousand twelve, and his whole place was
Speaker 1: decked out like this makeshift factory. They found uh bottles
Speaker 1: of wine just soaking in the kitchen sink so the
Speaker 1: labels could be easily removed, and and there were all
Speaker 1: these like quirking tools and thousands and thousands of fake
Speaker 1: wine labels that he'd forged from this enormous laser printer.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course us they were all for
Speaker 1: really prestigious wines from Brigadi and Bordeaux. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: And maybe most damning of all, the FBI found all
Speaker 1: these intricate tasting notes that Rudy had assembled, so apparently
Speaker 1: he'd been taking cheaper wines, mixing them together, and then
Speaker 1: you know, putting them in these more expensive bottles, sometimes
Speaker 1: also altering the bottles to make them seem more valuable
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, the worst part for him was
Speaker 1: that in a lot of cases, Rudy's formulas were written
Speaker 1: out for the different wines that he planned to counterfeit,
Speaker 1: so basically he was making these imitations of rare wines
Speaker 1: that he had tasted once before. But he wasn't exactly
Speaker 1: a hack like, he was really exacting about how to
Speaker 1: best approximate the taste of each one, so they did
Speaker 1: actually matched the label. Huh. I mean that's really interesting
Speaker 1: because I've heard that with rare old wines like this,
Speaker 1: most people are pretty clueless about the taste. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you're dealing with wine from a hundred years ago, so
Speaker 1: nobody knows what's supposed to taste like. And they probably
Speaker 1: paid so much for it anyway, that they aren't in
Speaker 1: any sort of hurry to open it. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: the care he showed was really unusual, and especially considering
Speaker 1: how unlikely it was that collectors would ever even open
Speaker 1: these bottles. But in the end, Rudy's extensive notes and
Speaker 1: this condo full of equipment really shed some light on
Speaker 1: his overall plan. So by bidding high for wines at auction,
Speaker 1: Rudy had driven up the market values and and that
Speaker 1: really paved the way for higher returns when he later
Speaker 1: released all these counterfeit bottles back into circulation. All told,
Speaker 1: Rudy had flooded the market with an estimated fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: bottles of counterfeit wine over the course of about a
Speaker 1: decade or so. So despite the fact that he was
Speaker 1: artfully blending these drinks, the FBI had to take him
Speaker 1: down and take him down hard. So two years after
Speaker 1: the raid, Rudy was sentenced to ten years in prison,
Speaker 1: which made him the first person in the US to
Speaker 1: ever be convicted of wine fraud. I mean that itself
Speaker 1: is crazy, right, I mean, the first person to ever
Speaker 1: be convicted of the wine fraud. So I know there's
Speaker 1: a little bit left to say about Rudy Kerney Allen's case,
Speaker 1: and I thought it might be fun to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the more tail signs of wine fraud. But
Speaker 1: before we get into any of that, let's take another break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking wine frauds. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: so well, I do want to make sure we don't
Speaker 1: overlook an important detail that you mentioned about Rudy's case,
Speaker 1: which is that he produced an absolutely insane amount of
Speaker 1: bake wine, especially for a one man operation. And I
Speaker 1: want to say, you said it was like fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: bottles that he manufactured. Yeah, it's I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: tremendous number. And that high volume is actually something that
Speaker 1: his supporters have pointed to his evidence that he couldn't
Speaker 1: have done what he did. And there's actually a fair
Speaker 1: amount of evidence that suggests Rudy wasn't acting alone. You know.
Speaker 1: For instance, according to investigators, Rudy had these two uncles
Speaker 1: who were supposedly notorious Indonesian bankropt Really that's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the story just gets better and better as you dig
Speaker 1: deeper into it. They were pretty good at their work too,
Speaker 1: so they're responsible for about eight hundred million dollars and
Speaker 1: stolen funds, most of which has never been recovered. There's
Speaker 1: also a paper trail that shows Rudy wire tens of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars to his brothers in Hong Kong and
Speaker 1: Indonesia during the height of his scheme. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: that would certainly explain where his money was coming from,
Speaker 1: as well as who might have been helping with his operation.
Speaker 1: But still, you've got to think if his uncles are
Speaker 1: such well known criminals, you think that the FBI would
Speaker 1: have taken an interest much sooner. I mean, why did
Speaker 1: it take p I s to figure this stuff out?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd wondered about that too, and it turns
Speaker 1: out that a big reason why his family's criminal connections
Speaker 1: went unnoticed for so long was that Rudy was using
Speaker 1: a fake name the whole time. According to one of
Speaker 1: Bill Coke's investigators, Rudy Kerney Owen is just a made
Speaker 1: up name from two famous Indonesian badminton players. How great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it sounded familiar. It's just everyone knows Batman players.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so random, it's actually kind of awesome.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious whatever hap into Rudy's fifteen thousand fakes, Like,
Speaker 1: are are they still floating around on the market? Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of them definitely are. I think only about
Speaker 1: a third of Rudy's wines had been accounted for it
Speaker 1: last count, and most of those have since been destroyed
Speaker 1: at landfill sites. And all of this is done under
Speaker 1: the supervision of US marshals. And it's actually kind of
Speaker 1: a bummer when you think about how selective Rudy was
Speaker 1: about his blending. Yeah, I mean, the bottles definitely weren't
Speaker 1: worth what he was charging. But this wasn't stuff you'd
Speaker 1: find on the average store shelf either. I know, as
Speaker 1: you were describing the process, like it made me want
Speaker 1: to taste some of these wines, and it is such
Speaker 1: a shame. Still, a lot of good has come out
Speaker 1: of these two big cases we've been talking about, because
Speaker 1: obviously rodent stock was kind of the precursor, and then
Speaker 1: you've got a Kerney owen, and both of those methods
Speaker 1: taught fraud investigators so many tricks for how to tell
Speaker 1: an authentic bottle from a fake. And obviously it's no
Speaker 1: coincidence that Bill Coke was one of the pivotal figures
Speaker 1: and bringing this down, because you know, he really understood
Speaker 1: that the key to authentication was paying attention to the
Speaker 1: wine packaging and not to the wine itself. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense. I was actually reading
Speaker 1: up on some of the more tech based solutions out there,
Speaker 1: and most of them have lower success rates than simply
Speaker 1: looking for discrepancies and the labels or the bottles. You know.
Speaker 1: For example, there's this device that came out a few
Speaker 1: years ago called the Corvan system, and it's basically this
Speaker 1: fancy corkscrew that lets you extract wine from a bottle
Speaker 1: without having to remove the cork. So you just stick
Speaker 1: this thin hollow needle through the cork and then the
Speaker 1: wine is pushed into the holes on the side of
Speaker 1: the needle, and then it carries it through the device,
Speaker 1: and lastly it's pumped into your glass. Wow. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so so the whole idea was that the auction houses
Speaker 1: could use this tool as a way to let bidders
Speaker 1: sample the wine prior to the sale, you know, without
Speaker 1: having to open and then devalue the whole bottle. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's amazing, and it actually sounds amazing and theory. But
Speaker 1: you know, like we've already talked about, most people don't
Speaker 1: know what old wine is supposed to taste like, right, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's not even the only problem. So according to
Speaker 1: Maureen Downey, who's one of the world's leading wine authenticators,
Speaker 1: counterfeiters are already using the core of n device to
Speaker 1: remove fine wine from the bottle and then just pump
Speaker 1: the cheaper stuff in in its place. So what was
Speaker 1: supposed to be like this revolutionary tool for verifying wines
Speaker 1: is now providing one of the easiest ways to create
Speaker 1: fake ones. I mean, that's terrible and it must have
Speaker 1: been so frustrating through whoever came up with this ingenious solution,
Speaker 1: But you know, it is funny that the tool I've
Speaker 1: heard is most helpful for detecting counterfeit wine is actually
Speaker 1: like a super low tech one, and that's the jeweler's loop,
Speaker 1: which is the round magnifying device that jewelers used for
Speaker 1: I guess, finding imperfections and diamonds and rubies and whatever.
Speaker 1: But with one of those, you can actually spot all
Speaker 1: kinds of inconsistencies, like you can find thumb prints on
Speaker 1: wax seals that should have been applied by machines, or
Speaker 1: other subtle differences like label colors, like the kind of
Speaker 1: details that point to inject printing over actually I guess
Speaker 1: like old fashioned ways of making labels. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And I've even heard about some of the more glaring
Speaker 1: errors that could be spotted just with the naked eye,
Speaker 1: as long as you know what you're looking for, Like
Speaker 1: sometimes counterfeiters get pretty lazy and they wind up misspelling
Speaker 1: the name of a wine, or they may release a
Speaker 1: particular vintage and a larger size bottle than it was
Speaker 1: ever actually sold in. But probably my favorite dumb mistake though,
Speaker 1: is this counterfeiter who tried to sell this supposedly very
Speaker 1: old wine, but he ended up putting it into bottles
Speaker 1: that had a recycling logo on the bottom. That's incredible. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, it really seems that the best way to
Speaker 1: protect yourself against wine fraud is just to be super
Speaker 1: knowledgeable about what you're trying to buy, right Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that doesn't seem like too much
Speaker 1: to ask, given the price labels that we're dealing with,
Speaker 1: and you know, the kinds of wines that that get counterfeited.
Speaker 1: Not to mention how extensive the problem of wine fraud
Speaker 1: seems to be now right, and and nowadays there's even
Speaker 1: an option to outsource that attention to detail and how
Speaker 1: do you do that? So big name cases like Rudy's
Speaker 1: have actually shined a spotlight on just how pervasive the
Speaker 1: problem with wine fraud is. And you know Maureen Downey,
Speaker 1: who you talked about earlier, she actually estimates that the
Speaker 1: total value of all fake wine on the market is
Speaker 1: about three bill billion dollars. I mean, that's just unbelievable,
Speaker 1: and over half a billion of that actually comes from
Speaker 1: Rudy alone. But other wine industry estimates say that at
Speaker 1: this point, around twenty of all wine and circulation is counterfeit.
Speaker 1: So I guess like the need for wine authentication is
Speaker 1: definitely there, and consultants like Downey have actually been stepping
Speaker 1: up to meet the challenge in lots of different ways,
Speaker 1: And one of those is through a website that Downey
Speaker 1: here self started called wine fraud dot Com. I haven't
Speaker 1: actually been to the site. So it's just like an
Speaker 1: online guide for spotting forgeries, yeah, I mean, it has
Speaker 1: tutorials of like how to recognize fraud and and there's
Speaker 1: also like a gallery of legitimate samples of popular wine
Speaker 1: so you can actually compare the real things to any
Speaker 1: potential fakes in their collections. And on the paid version
Speaker 1: of the site, because there's always a paid version, users
Speaker 1: can actually team up with experts to get their bottles verified. Well,
Speaker 1: that does sound pretty handy, and I guess if you're
Speaker 1: dropping a thousand bucks or so on the bottom of wine,
Speaker 1: you might as well pay a little extra to make
Speaker 1: sure that this thing is legitimate. Yeah, I mean, or
Speaker 1: you could just switch to beer. But good advice. But
Speaker 1: speaking of things to watch out where I I do
Speaker 1: think it's time to pop the cork on today's backed off,
Speaker 1: So let's dive in. M So I'm gonna kick this off.
Speaker 1: Did you know that the French sometimes eat rats, and
Speaker 1: it's a dish occasionally served in Bordeaux, but you only
Speaker 1: use alcoholic rats who've been hanging out in wine cellars. Basically,
Speaker 1: you brushed them with lots of olive oil and shallots,
Speaker 1: and apparently they're grilled over wine barrels to get even
Speaker 1: more of that winey flavor. It's supposed to be delicious.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think i'd probably need a few
Speaker 1: glasses of actual wine before trying that. But have you
Speaker 1: heard about this wine called nineteen Crimes? So it's almost
Speaker 1: like Pokemon Go meets wine. So the nineteen Crimes refers
Speaker 1: to the British prisoners who were sent to Australia and
Speaker 1: each of them had been accused of one of the
Speaker 1: nineteen crimes of the time. I just read about this recently,
Speaker 1: but the crimes were things like impersonating an Egyptian and
Speaker 1: stealing letters and anyway. You could hold up a wine
Speaker 1: bottle to your phone and it tells you the crime stories.
Speaker 1: So you get some delicious notes of history with each glass.
Speaker 1: And apparently the gimmick works because sales have been great.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. So there's this two hundred mile pilgrimage
Speaker 1: from Rome to Ortona in Italy called the Camino Descent Tomasso. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen this trend recently, but
Speaker 1: like walking these Comino pilgrimages, has has just seen this
Speaker 1: huge resurgence. But at the end of the road in Ortona,
Speaker 1: there's something wonderful waiting for you. A wine fountain. It
Speaker 1: runs twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,
Speaker 1: and it's there specifically for thirsty pilgrims and also I
Speaker 1: guess tourists. But they do ask you to keep it
Speaker 1: to one glass, and according to Towny's quote, it isn't
Speaker 1: for drunkards or louts. All right, well, this is super
Speaker 1: short one, but did you realize there's a specially minimally
Speaker 1: fermented wine that gets used at mass occasionally, so it's
Speaker 1: made for priests who are recovering alcoholics. I like that.
Speaker 1: So I don't think you and I were hip to
Speaker 1: the four loco trend, but lucky for us, we can
Speaker 1: still get in on this buck fast tonic wine. It's
Speaker 1: Scottish for logo, it's it's proved by monks and it's
Speaker 1: a fairly fient alcohol. By volume, so you know it's
Speaker 1: gonna get you drunk and drop for drop. It also
Speaker 1: contains approximately as much caffeine as six cups of coffee.
Speaker 1: It's basically a recipe for disaster and and people have
Speaker 1: been quick to link it to crimes. Supposedly it led
Speaker 1: to over five thousand penny crimes and fights in a
Speaker 1: small region of Scotland over two or three years. But
Speaker 1: the funniest thing I've read about it was this review
Speaker 1: and Thrillist that said it's the scourge of the drinking
Speaker 1: class in the UK and the most polarizing thing to
Speaker 1: come for monks since the bowl cut. That's pretty great.
Speaker 1: I do have to admit that any fact off that
Speaker 1: includes the words Scottish for loco is something that deserves
Speaker 1: a trophy. So so Mango, I'm gonna give you this one.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and that's it for today's show. If we've
Speaker 1: forgotten any great facts about wine or wine fraud, we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear those from. You can always email us
Speaker 1: part time Genius and how Stuff Works dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also call our seven fact hotline that's one eight
Speaker 1: four four pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook
Speaker 1: or Twitter. Thanks so much, for listening. Thanks again for listening.
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