KEY POINTS:
When John Kapon ripped open the capsule on the US$15,000 bottle of Romanee Conti and began to prod at the cork, the collector who owned the rare wine almost had a heart attack.
"He was shouting, 'You're destroying the value of the bottle'," Kapon recalls. "Well, I shouted
back that I was actually increasing it."
Kapon is a wine auctioneer, and he was checking to see if the wine was a fake - one of the increasing number of counterfeit bottles circulating in the US, which have attracted the attention of the FBI.
Investigators have been looking at whether some of the biggest auction houses in the world, including Christie's in London, have been turning a blind eye to questions of authenticity. Counterfeits are believed to account for one in 20 bottles sold, and with the market for rare wines booming, the illegal trade has become too big to ignore.
Kapon says inspecting the corks, checking the texture of the labels (glossy ones are likely to be fakes) and even cracking open a bottle from a big consignment are all important, but "it's not an exact science. As a merchant you have to be careful who you deal with, and stand behind what you offer.
"It is no good saying 'buyer beware' - that is not going to be tolerated any more. Prices of some of the top wines have doubled in the past year, so the more counterfeits we can weed out, the better."
The FBI has sent subpoenas to some of America's big collectors and to several of the big auction houses, and is handing evidence to a grand jury that will decide if prosecutions are possible. Professionals in the trade in the US believe that much of the initial fakery is performed in Europe - with an increasing amount in Asia - so it is the dealers rather than the perpetrators who will be the focus of the investigation.
Christie's is helping the FBI and says it does not sell any lot it knows or suspects is inauthentic.
Christies sold US$58 million ($84.6 million) of rare wines last year from 44 well attended sales from London and Paris, to New York and Los Angeles. Traditional collectors have been joined by super-rich bankers and traders on Wall St and entrepreneurs from Asia.
"A US$1000-plus bottle of wine is the guys' version of the Hermes handbag," Kapon said.
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.
But the problem continues to spiral out of control for the oldest wines, some of which may have been faked years ago and have lain undetected in the cellars of innocent collectors. A vicious courtroom battle is under way in New York where mining tycoon William Koch is suing the feted German wine merchant Hardy Rodenstock 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.
- Independent