Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Barrel To Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot. I am your host, Kristen Ellis. I have a partner in crime. What's your name? Jeff Carlin, my friends call me. What's going on this week? Oh man, I'm here to talk about kind of something a bit negative, actually. Fraud and wine. Fraud and wine? When it comes to wine, it's like people are just trying to make that fast buck, because you can. Talking about selling old, old lots, maybe in the auctions or on the secondary market. When a lot of these fraudulent, kind of these protective measures weren't in place, it's super easy nowadays to fraudulently sell an old bottle of wine from the fifties, because there just weren't controls. So the variance between labels from one wine from the same year, from the same producer can be actually great, believe it or not. Wine makers used to sign each bottle by hand and all these different things. Then because of the scarcity of fine wine in that top and premier group, it just creates hysteria. And so, as with anything, there's a select few of human beings on the planet that will take that hysteria, and they will then fraudulently capitalize on it for their own gain. Generally, in this sense, tens of millions of dollars. Wow. So, I mean, people are buying things they think is one thing, but it's really something entirely different? Exactly. So there are a few different ways we can skin that fake wine cat. You can change the label, you can change the bottle. Really common, though, is changing the juice. So let's just talk a little bit about the history of wine fraud. When do you think wine fraud, for lack of a better term, began? I'm going to say that there were M4s filled with fraudulent wine back in the Greek times. I think that you are absolutely right. So the answer to the question is from the get-go. Get-go, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But there weren't as far as ancient Greece, as far as I know, this hysteria of the vintages that existed until really the Romans, because the Romans had, we have more evidence of their writings. So it's maybe not even playing field in terms of primary sources. But that being said, the Romans are really the ones that have more of a scientific understanding of viticulture, meaning that they're cultivating these vineyards hundreds of years after the Greeks. So there's this guy called Pliny the Elder, very famous, or Pliny, right, as some people call, but you would be pretentious and I would step over you on the street. Just kidding. So Pliny, or Pliny, he, and like a lot of Roman nobility and elite, they liked a particular wine called Phalernian wine. And Phalernian wine came from right around the area of Naples today, or Napoli. And there was this vintage, the Opimian vintage of 121 BC. And that was during the consulship of this dude named Opimius. And this 121 BC, this wine was so delectable that it was actually served at a banquet for Julius Caesar in 60 BC. And they were drinking this 121 Opimian wine forever. Wow, so 60 some hundred years later. A hundred years later, they're like, oh man, I got a bottle of that 121, baby. Poppin resin, yeah. It turns out they weren't actually drinking. So of course they weren't. Right. You know what I mean? And so Pliny would just lament over the fact that like, this is not 121. So that was kind of really the first iconic vintage of a particular wine that people were crazy for, that was just the best of the best, and was kind of propagated for decades and decades and decades is actually being something that was existed. Come on. Moving on then. So wines become popular, right? And people fake them. Better wines command more money. People are going to fake that stuff to get more cash. It's just the human condition is just something, unfortunately, that we do. And it got so bad actually that in medieval Germany, if you got busted selling fraudulent wine, you could be branded. What? I was like, can I pick my design? You could be beaten or you could be sentenced to death. Really? Yeah. So if they're like, is this really Opimian? Nope. Whomp, whomp, to the guillotine. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, Hans, you're out. You are out. Outs. Okay. So then we have this Laos, this root Laos. So we're going to move on past medieval times. We're getting to the late 19th century. And we have the vines of the world are devastated by phylloxera. Because of international movement, especially between North America and Europe, phylloxera damaged all the vidus vinifera vines around the world. So vidus vinifera, that's your cabernet, that's your chardonnay, etc. So we kind of have a time of void of wine grapes that produced wine, especially in Europe. And so fraud was just rampant because people were trying to A, drink because still hygiene isn't the best thing in the 1890s, 1900s. So you can imagine what people were trying to pass off as cabernet. So that led to that later on the adulteration of Food and Drink Act of 1860 in London, process this and that that adulteration act that was already in place got added on to after phylloxera. So it was amended in 1889, then again in 1904, and just it was like a domino effect of countries that took that act and said, oh, we're going to define wine. It's like you guys are so fraudulent making stuff out of blueberries or whatever, that now we have to actually define wine as a drink of fermented grapes. So they actually have basics. Yeah, it's like Merriam-Webster to be like, for real. Seriously. Like, isn't this just a given, you know? So that's kind of like just a very, very brief overview. And so nobody liked fraud, but everybody had to live with it. Where we get this kind of control system in Europe really starts in the mid 1900s, around the 1930s. Down in southern Rome, in southern France, we have this guy, he's a proponent of Shots Enough To Pop, and he's looking at Rockford Cheese, and he's saying, okay, they're protecting their product, their place name, and they're saying that we're Rockford, nobody else can call us Rockford, and you can't make another style like this and call it the same thing. So our style, our product has topicity, and the name is protected. He's like, man, we're going to do that with wine. So in the 1930s, they did it, and that started what is called the appellation system. It's an appellation that's controlled. So a named place that is controlled so nobody else can make Chateauneuf-du-Pape anywhere else in France and call it Chateauneuf-du-Pape. So that's what makes Burgundy, Burgundy and Bordeaux, Bordeaux. So it gives wines topicity, and so you also know kind of what to expect nowadays from a consumer standpoint. If I look at a bottle of Barolo, I know what it is. And I know that I can't make that wine in Spain and call it Barolo. So it really just protects it from the place and protects that style. And that tradition, actually. So that was also in place to combat fraud, because Chateauneuf-du-Pape at the time was very well known, commanded a lot of money. Sure, everyone had to want to have the wine of the Pope. You bet your butt, yeah. And we're going to talk a little bit about it. We're going to come back to Southern France. You know how I like to do the full circle thing. I do. So we're going to come back later when we're talking about fraud. Kristen Marie at Full Circle Ellis. Yes. All right, so ways that wine can be adulterated or fake. Let's go back to the Romans. The Romans would add milk. What? They'd be like, come on, my philharmonic has milk in it, pretty sure. We're not talking store-bought, pasteurized milk. We're talking some Roman milk, ancient Roman milk, which is disgusting. Someone milked an animal into a vessel and then poured it in some wine. No. They would use nettles, resin, honey, or they would put lead in it sometimes. Yeah. So I mean, that caused all sorts of maladies. So label fraud, right? That's easy to define. So when the appellation system was put in place, that really helped against label fraud because it had to be all registered, you know, governmentally. And so that kind of helped. But at the same time, nowadays, like we're seeing, it didn't help 100 percent. Remember we did the Happy Van Winkle podcast? I do. I talked about when I did a seminar, I switched the juice. Same kind of thing. You can just switch the juice. So once again, like I said, it can be that same bottle and just make it something fake, which we're going to hear again here in just a minute. There are a couple of websites. There is a winefraud.com and there's a wine fraud index in the Wine Spectator that people can check out. winefraud.com isn't so great if you don't want to become a member, but they'll show you historical fraud, photo evidence of this case, that case. This is what this label looks like. So you can kind of cross-reference if you buy something that could be highly collectible. This is how I know this vintage looks this way. Look for this mark or whatever it is. Just to be clear, you are saying frog protection, right? Yeah, fraud protection. Frog protection. Fraud protection. Frog. Fraud. Frog. Fraud. I think we're on the same page. We're totally on the same page. Okay, let's talk about some famous, just a few, we don't have all day, because that's how bad people are in the world, folks. Okay, I bet. Yeah, are you sad about humanity? Well then, listen to Hardy Roddenstock, my friend. This guy is from the 70s and 80s, and he was rolling with all the wine VIPs, talking about Jansus Robinson back in the day, and Robert Parker. He'd had these VIP tastings and have all these people over, and he would bring many bottles to auction houses, and this guy was just killing it. And he's very famous for selling what are called the Jefferson Bottles. Oh yeah, I do remember this. There was one bottle that was for real, that was purchased in his underlock and key, and then, yeah, mysteriously, the providence of them were under a wall in his cellar in Paris when TJ was a minister. Can I call him TJ? He did, he doesn't know. Yeah, TJ, his friends called him. Yeah, so Thomas Jefferson would sign stuff, TH, period, J, period. So that one bottle existed, yeah, then also these magical bottles materialized from his cellar when he was a minister, I believe before he became the third president. And he, man, he loved the juice. He loved the juice. And I mean, I don't blame the guy, right? So there's this dude then, Hardy Rottenstock, and what he did is he brought up these fake bottles and he sold them at auction, and sold them to this dude, William Coke. He is an heir to a gasoline fortune, and apparently this family is worth like billions and billions. He bought some of these bottles and so did somebody else from Forbes. So they bring them home and they're checking these bottles out. And I guess, I mean, long story longer, they just kind of had the heebie-jeebies. And they looked into it and they found out that the engravings that had Thomas Jefferson and the years on it were actually made with a high speed dentist drill. I mean, so very recently in time was that invention created. So they were just like, mwah, mwah, but the dude is in Germany. Bill Koch is, you know, trying to extradite, so it's still unsettled as far as I know. Wow. And he's trying to sue this guy for millions and millions of dollars. Civil suits and whatnot, I'm not quite sure on that. So he was sort of the progenitor of this dude called Rudy Kurniawan, who was born Zhen Wang Huang. He was Chinese but from Jakarta. This guy got busted in March of 2012. You ever heard of Netflix, Jeff? Uh, yeah. There's a documentary called Sour Grapes. It's all about this guy. You should watch the story. It's pretty sweet. So he gets in there with all of these high-end tasting groups out in California. But what's interesting is he kind of rubbed shoulders with some of the more famous wine connoisseurs and experts of the time, especially when we're talking about Burgundy. One name that you know if you know Burgundy is Wasserman. And he becomes friends with Paul Wasserman and he, Wasserman kind of becomes a bit of a mentor for this guy. But I guess this dude just had a great palate and a wonderful memory, like a photographic memory, could taste everything, remember everything and he was super into wine. So he kind of had a little bit of that, the passion, the enthusiasm and somehow a credit line to back this up. So he was right there with the fancy cars and kind of living the life. And so here's kind of what got him busted. I don't know if it's just a perfect combination of greed and laziness and sloppiness, but Burgundians are historically important and collectible producers, keep very tight records of what they made. And they know what they've done, especially if we're talking about anything within the last, you know, 100 years, they kind of know what's going on. You know what I mean? Down to the bottle even. Yeah, they don't have to really look too far into it to be like, nah, I don't think that that's right. So Rudy then, what he tried to do was sell a lot of wine on auction from Domaine Ponceau, P-O-N-S-O-T. And he tried to sell one consignment. It was one bottle of a 1929 Ponceau, Claude Laroche, it was a Grand Cru. The Domaine did not produce any of these wines until 1934. Yeah, exactly. And then 38 bottles of another Ponceau Grand Cru called Claude Saint Denis. And Claude Saint Denis was, the years he posted were for 1945 to 1971, and they didn't make that wine until 1982. So what happened was there was some kind of rich Parisian billionaire that bought some of that Grand Cru and then offered for Ponceau to make it for them. So that's how they know. I mean, they don't own the vineyard, but they made it basically exclusively for that guy since that dude held it. So yeah, they were at Ponceau. They're like, they cried BS. And the lot was pulled. And this one instance, trying to sell 45 to 71 of wines that didn't exist, you would think that that would be enough to bust this Rudy dude and be like, okay, this didn't exist. It's impossible. It took them four years to bust this guy. And when they busted into his apartment in 2012, they found it was just kind of like Catch Me If You Can. It was just like that movie. And the photos are the same. Old bottles and labels and things are underwater. And this poor guy was just working his butt off. Poor guy in my butt. To try to pull it off, but he got busted. And he went to jail for, to prison for 10 years. Geez. Prison, not jail. French prison? French prison. Oh no. He went to prison. Prison. No ponceau in prison, booty. That's for sure. So yeah, he got caught. So that's just kind of a few modern examples. And it just goes on from there. We at Binny's, we take good care of selling some of our allocated items to make sure that they end up in the right hands. Sure. You guys go right to the source. We go right to the source. Yeah. I mean, in terms, but we also do keep an eye on on that market. So we want to make sure that our product is going to people that are going to enjoy them and love them and drink them and treat them with respect. Not do any kind of fraudulent Rudy. Don't Rudy. Don't Rudy it. I know you want to, but it'll feel better to do the right thing at the end of the day. Don't Rudy it. There you go, kids. That's your that's the more we know. You know. All right. So what can we do? What can we do nowadays to kind of prevent fraud? Well, there's a big rise in appraisal and authentication experts. So if your kid is scientifically inclined, get them to go into this particular field, because apparently they make good money. I bet. They looked into it. It sounds pretty cool too, actually. Producers and collectors also are in the fold of experimenting of how to avoid fraud. So there really is no shared industry standards. That's what makes it difficult, you know. So that's kind of a big hurdle. One thing that I thought was cool researching was a proof tag bubble tag. Proof tag bubble tag, it's called. And Lafitte and other high-end Bordeaux producers and a few others use it. And what this is is a translucent polymer with a randomly self-generated constellation of bubbles that is unique to that particular lot, to that particular wine. And the tag authenticates the wine, each bottle, and then links it back to the mothership. Ah, science. Proof tag bubble tag, baby. That's where we're going. I love it. It's a radio frequency identification device. So that started just to kind of monitor temperature of wine in transit, but now we use it to make sure that the wine is where it needs to be. So these chips have serial numbers and then a randomly generated number for identification after the serial number. So even if they get that serial number, you won't get that. Nobody knows what the random thing is. It's like ambiguous to everyone. Others are anti-tampering cap that fits over the cork, ultraviolet signatures, DNA codes, watermarks, holograms, but it still doesn't do anything for old wine, which is what we're talking about today. So we're still very much in the thick of a fraudulent behavior and the potential is still very much alive. Well, everybody wants to make more money these days. For example, let me tell you, cutting people really pays. All right, so our customer Q&A, which we do every week for a $20 gift card to Binny's Beverage Depot, we've got Janine M from Villa Park. So Janine went to on Twitter or even Instagram really, because it's at Binny's Bev, but Twitter's easier. Twitter's the best. Yeah, Twitter's easier. Yeah. So what up and coming wine regions should we keep our eye on? Well, at Binny's, we just did a lot of inspection into Australian wine. One thing that I think is interesting is Tasmania. Tasmania is really out there as an up and coming wine region. It's that tiny little island in southeastern Australia. It's very cool. It's a cool climate. But because of climate change, obviously, that's changing. So grapes are ripening more readily. But they do wonderful expressions of cool climate Chardonnay and cool climate Pinot. Now, Jeff, here's a test. When we have Chardonnay and Pinot together in a cool climate, what do we put those together to make? Champagne. Yay, sis! So it's wonderful, complex expressions of both of those wines still, but then they make lovely bubbles from Tasmania. So keep your eye on that. Not a whole lot of distribution yet, but mark my words, it's coming. Excellent. Another, I think, as far as bubbles is concerned is Francia Corta. That's in Lombardy in Italy, and they're made in the champagne method. Actually, the minimum aging requirements for Francia Corta is a lot longer than minimum for champagne. So, you get a lot more of that autolytic characteristic in the wine just by default. So, I think they're really, as far as a relative price comparison, they're a lot cheaper than some bottles of champagne for the same quality. And it's also an up and coming category too, Francia Corta from Lombardy in Italy. Francia Corta, cool. I never even heard of it. Really? I mean, that's the point. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think as far as, you know, on the mouths of sommeliers, those two are going to, Francia Corta probably more readily than Tasmania, but I think Tasmania is coming. It's coming on the pipeline. So that's it, Janine M. I hope that that helps. If you need anything else, go ahead and write us again. And hopefully you can win a $20 gift card to Binny's Beverage Depot. That'd be great. Cool. All right. Do you want to wrap it up? Yeah, for another week. Learned all about fraud, not frogs, fraud. I love learning about fraud actually. It's very interesting. You can just get lost in the research though. I can imagine that. What I even talked about today wasn't even... Didn't even skim the surface. I mean, that's a rabbit hole of discussion in history, I imagine, because wine has been so prevalent throughout human history. Yeah. And so is fraud. Exactly. It's like which one is like chicken or egg kind of thing. Yeah, but it's still pretty great. It's a good thing to look out for. And especially if you're at those high end wine auctions. Keep your eye on... Yeah, exactly. Get on that winefraud.com. That's your new best friend. And avoid people named Rudy. Yeah, Rudy. Rudy. All right. Cool. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us. I'm Kristen Ellis. I'm Jeff Carlin. Keep tasting. We'll see you next time.