Pinot Noir: inside the criminal gangs making fake wine | Hacker News Reader

Pinot Noir: inside the criminal gangs making fake wine

economist.com

72 pointsaxiomdata31639 comments

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https://archive.is/uth9S

https://wallhop.io/https://www.economist.com/interactive/202...

If you like wine, and haven't watched Sour Grapes, you should.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sour_grapes_2016

It's basically a documentary about this guy, who is mentioned in the article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Kurniawan

The aftermath part of that Wikipedia page is pretty amusing.

"As of 2023, Kurniawan has been counterfeiting wines as a party trick at exclusive dinners in Singapore so that his creations can be compared to the originals as well as be sold as cheaper legitimate blends rather than forgeries.[35] On multiple occasions, most of the guests preferred the fakes.[36]"

Also check out Somm[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somm_(film)

Also common, apparently, is for Western European wine makers to just buy up batches from Eastern Europe that fit the profile they want, and take them back and re-label them as French. Depends on if you believe Eastern European family winemakers or not, so take it with a grain of salt.

> He believes the sweet spot for criminals is what he calls “medium” and “medium-high” wines—bottles selling between €50 and €300.

Now I’m wondering how common this is. I’ve had my eye on a nice bottle of Bordeaux for a special occasion, but how can I know if I’m buying something legitimate or not, especially online?

Firefox users who can't scroll: Inspect Element -> Style Editor tab -> turn off <inline style sheet #2>

Merci!

Could you distill that into a uBlock rule?

Wow neat. You'd also need rules to get rid of the splat walls. I did that manually with the element inspector but automating it would be nice.

www.economist.com##html,body:style(overflow: auto !important; height: auto !important; overscroll-behavior: auto !important;)

www.economist.com##teg-page-wall

France to spend €200M on destroying excess wine as demand falls (2023) [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37282465

My solution is buying the cheapest stuff (about 8aud/5euro?) a bottle that I reckon tastes great, knowing full well I enjoy the taste and that's all that matters to me!

walled

It was interesting to hear Iugov's various excuses toward the end of the article. It was retailers' fault who knew the deal was too good to be true. People also counterfeit handbags. He never counterfeited anything over €15K. He can't be that bad because he lives in a one-bedroom apartment.

I wonder why he bothers. He makes his living deceiving people and stealing value from vintners. He would would be more sympathetic if he was honest with himself. As it is, it just sounded like whining.

He asked what made him different than someone selling fake Rolexes or handbags at the flea market, who the police rarely bothered with. It's a worthwhile question.

He just comes off as a two bit scammer, whoppee whoo. Seems excessive to have a detective dog him.

As long as it doesn't have ethylene glycol in it I'm good to go.

Just the other day my wife and I were talking about how much we learned from The Simpsons.

I just connected the dots because of the episode where some French thugs put antifreeze in their bootleg wine.

The funniest scene is when Bart is complaining to the cop about how they are working him hard, feeding him nothing, abusing him, putting antifreeze in the wine. And the cop ignores everything but the last line...

This guy drinks

Yikes! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Austrian_diethylene_glyco...

Anyone, and I repeat, ANYONE who buys 31 Leroy Musigny's from a 29 year old Russian shouldn't be surprised when they discover the wines were fake.

The fact that the cops found a RC in the boot of his car is also insane. Those bottles run in the low to mid 5 figures and anyone who is in the market for a wine like that should have provenance at the forefront of their mind. Your car is NOT a great option for wine storage.

This is just the latest in a string of top end wine counterfeiters. Before this was Rudy, before him was Rodenstock.

> Criminal groups can then buy this surplus at a discount and put it into counterfeit packaging.

That crosses the line from "fraud" to "arbitrage"...

I know my wine is real because I get it directly from the winery or winemaker on release.

It's very disappointing to read in this article that counterfeiters are going downmarket from the likes of DRC and Petrus and producing fakes that regular winos might buy.

you don't actually know that, but at least you can safely claim as such without risk of criminal liability

I assumed hackingonempty was talking about belonging to a wine club.

I’m not at any legal risk for believing that the half case UPS dropped off actually came from the winery its label claims.

You can buy directly from wineries. Just show up at the cellar door (or their website). Surely that is a thing in the USA too?

Absolutely. It is a common Bay Area pastime to make the roughly one-hour drive to wine country and do tastings at one or more wineries.

A “wine club” is a discount purchase program. Virtually all wineries run one, as do some larger wine merchants like Total Wine. You commit to purchasing some number of bottles periodically (quarterly or semi-annually) at a discounted rate. Membership also usually includes free on-premise tastings, so when it’s time to make your purchase it’s very common to visit the winery, taste their current offerings, and come home with your selections.

This becomes impractical if you belong to several wine clubs or don’t live near wine country, and some of the retail-run clubs choose the wines for you. Hence my quip about UPS delivery. (Legality of alcohol delivery varies by state, as a legacy of the repeal of prohibition.)

Here is our 1987-vintage reminder about the common chemistry of grape wines and "permitted additives":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfite#Wine

Compare and contrast with the toxic substances known as ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfate#Uses_and_occurrence

Ain’t nobody fakin’ two-buck chuck, this is strictly a rich people problem. I’m looking for my tiny violin about now.

TFA notes they intercepted a shipment of fake Yellow Tail, a "mass market" Australian wine which sells for around £7/bottle in the UK.

that’s cheap but not bottom shelf. you can still serve that in polite company.

let’s worry when the fake Carlo Rossi or Peter Vella hits the market.

But it is also caught.

You have absolutely no idea based on the information provided that they haven't faked lower end wine.

Based upon the volumes sold and the low risk it would seem foolish to assume they hadn't.

TFA mentions low end is higher risk; it would seem foolish to assume the cheapest wines have been faked, and if they somehow had been, even more foolish to assume the buyers even cared.

Lower risk (per bottle), but also lower profit, meaning you need to fake a lot more of it.

3.99 chuck these days, at least in California.

inflation strikes again!

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