|  Whisky is known to be the most adulterated beverage in India. Wine is as easy to doctor. With the prices of rare wines taking an astronomical jump in price, this has been the most visible area of committing fraud. One out twenty rare bottles sold is estimated to be a counterfeit.
It is often said that we consume more Red Label Johnny Walker in India than produced in mother Scotland (the story should soon be featuring Black Label, which has attracted enough urban and affluent attraction in recent years). Serena Sutcliffe, head of auction house Sotheby's wine department in London warned last year that the quantity of 1945 vintage wines from Bordeaux sold was greater than the actual output of that year, believed to be the best vintage of twentieth century.
The reason for the fatal attraction to dupe in this segment is simple. Fuelled by an international explosion of interest in wine among the swelling ranks of the super-rich, rare wine prices have soared since the 1980s. Some bottles of blue-chip wines - such as burgundies from the Domaine de la Romanée Conti or one of the smaller estates such as Châteaux Pétrus or Lafleur - have been known to command five-figure sums for the special vintages. It is also many years after purchase that a collector decides to open his precious bottle of Château Latour-à-Pomerol 1961 or a Margaux 1945, only to find that the liquid inside bears little relation to his fantasy.
Wine as liquid and unpredictable, is easy to forge , even to a standard capable of convincing experts. Indeed, wines have been known to be adulterated and counterfeited since at least the first century AD. Fake bottles may have been in circulation for years but it is only relatively recently that their incidence and value has become too great to ignore, says Jancis Robinson in her weekend column in the London Financial Times.
Authorities around the world have stepped up the hunt for forgeries. A US$4000 bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild was discovered in raids in China . The mafia is believed to be behind 16,000 bogus bottles of 1994 and 1995 Sassicaia. And an Australian criminal gang was caught in 1998 with their homemade version of the famous 1990 Penfolds Grange.
The latest fraud involving US billionaire mining tycoon William Koch who claims he has been cheated by the German oenophile Hardy Rodenstock has triggered investigations into the fine wine trade by the US Department of Justice and the FBI. A vicious courtroom battle is under way in New York where the mining tycoon is suing the feted German wine merchant over the authenticity of wine Rodenstock claimed belonged to Thomas Jefferson and Tsar Nicholas II.
Koch says the bottles are a fake; Rodenstock says the bottles were discovered in a bricked up cellar in Paris and denies all the claims.
It was a request from the Boston Museum of Fine Art for documentation supporting the provenance of a "Jefferson bottle" that was to be included in a display of the billionaire's collection at the musuem that alerted Koch to the possibility that some of his wine might be counterfeit. (Thomas Jefferson, the connoisseur president, kept detailed records of his purchases.)
Koch's four Jefferson bottles, red and sweet white Bordeaux supposedly from the 1784 and 1787 vintages bought by Jefferson , were supplied by Hardy Rodenstock.
Rodenstock, appeared on the fine wine scene in the 1980s and 1990s as a pop music entrepreneur who established a connection with one of Germany's wine magazines and had built up an enviable cellar, investing heavily in the then unfashionable but incomparable sweet white Bordeaux Château d'Yquem.
Rodenstock's annual tastings have drawn the international wine elite to Munich 's Koenigshof Hotel for a week-long orgy of sipping and sloshing. He began hosting the event in 1980 and by the mid-1990s was inviting a few dozen guests a year, including merchants and collectors from the U.S. , Europe and the Far East . Guests included Robert Parker, and Jancis Robinson.
Though not well-known in the U.S. , Rodenstock has appeared on the covers of European wine magazines and is married to a German actress, Helga Lehner, who once appeared in Playboy magazine. The couple owns homes in Munich and Kitzbuehel , Austria , and also has property in Monaco and Bordeaux .
The case is going to provide an interesting reading for years to come. Since we, in India are not likely to be involved directly in such frauds for many years, we can sit down, relax and enjoy the complete story by Jancis Robinson at http://www.ft.com
We shall update our viewers on the unfolding chapters of this non-fictional novel in future editions of delWine. Meanwhile, you may also like to visit http://www.bloomberg.com
for an update |
