Bottles of fake Rudy Kurniawan wine being destroyed in 2015. US Marshalls Office
The world’s most notorious wine forger, Rudy Kurniawan, has served his 10-year prison sentence and is back in business creating wine forgeries for willing customers, reports W. Blake Gray in Wine-Searcher.
Kurniawan is not doing anything illegal. Everyone knows they are dealing with forgeries.
Rudy Kurniawan was recently seen at a wine tasting in Singapore where he joined a group of seven guests who blind-tasted a 1990 DRC Romanée-Conti and a 1990 Château Pétrus against two forgeries prepared by Kurniawan. Wine fraud-buster, Maureen Downey, revealed in her website, winefraud.com, that most of the tasters preferred the forged wines. Similar tasting events with Kurniawan in attendance were reported by Downey.
Downey explained:
“He talks to his big collector friends and they pull some of the biggest wines that they have out of their cellars. That guy gives Rudy the list. Rudy makes his version of the wines. They have a meal and they taste them side-by-side, blind. The man that writes the tasting notes is very good. The overall impression is that people prefer Rudy’s wines, because they’re fresher. That really speaks to the audience.”
Kurniawan is not doing anything illegal. Everyone knows they are dealing with forgeries. Kurniawan is showered with praise by the wealthy hosts and willing guests, one of whom labelled him as a ‘vinous genius’. Kurniawan is certainly a celebrity.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he expanded his market by making more affordable ‘Genuine
This Article was originally published on The Real Review
