“Sure, I faked before. When it’s enough already and you want to get some sleep.” — Old Saw

More than 180 years after his death, Thomas Jefferson is in the middle of a counterfeit wine lawsuit. No, our founding father was not selling bogus hooch. He became a wine collector while living on the Champs-Élysées as Minister to France. Jefferson had affinity for fine French wine and would get it shipped directly from the Chateau to his cellar.

In 1985, Hardy Rodenstock, a German wine merchant unearthed four bottles of Lafite and Mouton in a walled-up cellar engraved with the initials ‘TH.J’. Rodenstock had made a name for himself finding and selling French wine that pre-dated the Phylloxera outbreak that destroyed French wine as the world knew it.

The bottle labels stated they were from the 1784 and 1787 vintage; two from each. Rodenstock proceeded to sell them to Christie’s in London, who was the only auction house for wine in the world at the time. Christie’s wine expert, Michael Broadbent, validated the authenticity of the wine cache in question. Today, Mr. Broadbent is one of the most influential and important figures in the wine industry. I must confess a non-sexual wine crush on Mr. Broadbent here before I go any further. Done. Christie’s proceeded to auction the wine to numerous collectors, one being Christopher Forbes of Forbes Publishing.

In 1988, after a few years of travel, all four bottles ended up in retailer cellars and were purchased by billionaire William Koch, a noted wine collector with over 35,000 bottles in his cellar. In a show of respect for the importance of his historic find, he offered them to be displayed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The veracity of the bottles immediately came into question when one historian noticed the engraving of Jefferson’s initials was done with tools that didn’t exist in 1784.

Koch, who stated his expertise is not in the bottling and labeling but the experience of wine, immediately cried foul. Experts close to the case stated that Jefferson kept meticulous journals about his wine collection, and these bottles made no appearance. The two retailers Koch purchased the wine from pointed in the direction of Hardy Rodenstock. To this day, Rodenstock contends his wines are legit and that Koch is just trying to make (more of) a name for himself.

So why would someone counterfeit these bottles to be sold at auction? Is there real value in doing all of that sleight of hand to dupe a collector? The answer is a resounding “yes,” as William Koch paid over $500,000 to the retailers who sold him the faux Jeffersonian grape juice.

Wine Spectator reported that auction sales had exceeded $200 million in 2007. Consider that in 2005, the market topped out around $100 million in domestic auction sales. In two years, sales figures doubled in an industry that has openly auctioned wine for 20+ years. Talk about an increase in popularity. And why has that happened? New money. New players. Less bottles. Wealthy Asian and Middle Eastern individuals bitten by the wine bug are a new phenomenon. To wit, the first ever wine auction outside of the U.K. and U.S. happened last month in Hong Kong, and sales were astronomical. Wine is chic. Wine is the new fine art collectible.

Wine is also finite. Once a vintage is gone, it’s gone. There’s a standard joke that “Las Vegas sells more bottles of 1982 Petrus than were ever made.” When you have wealthier folks and more of them chasing down the same 800 cases left in the world, your prices increase. Most of these are old, rare vintages that have already been consumed by the original purchaser, so there’s not much left to go around. Experts believe 95% of all wine is drunken the first year it is purchased. That includes the collectible stuff.

So, let’s review what we’ve got so far: The German wine-forger, a limelight-and-money-grubbing “crime fighter,” and an old-guard wine expert with his reputation on the line. Let’s not forget the huge amounts of cash involved surrounding this insanity and you got yourself an old school noir thriller based on the collecting of bottles of f*cking grape juice. You couldn’t even pitch this idea to Michael Bay for fear of getting laughed at because of implausibility. Actually, I lied. I think Bay would make this into a summer blockbuster. And judging by the pictures I have seen, Koch must be played by Ed Begley, Jr.

So, how do you spot a fake? There’s no one easy answer. There’s lots of really sneaky and creative tricks that these grape charlatans use to fool the public. Wines that have changed hands usually have a much higher chance of fraud. To be completely safe, purchase old, rare vintages from the Chateau directly. But these wines come at a premium that most cannot afford. Purchasing wines at auction or from resellers can save you a few dollars, and as long as you are smart about it, you’ll be fine. There are a few standards that the pros use when they get new bottles in for auction.

First of all, an old vintage that is still drinkable has to be kept in the correct provenance to survive the long haul. That means a temperature-controlled environment (typically 51-54 degrees for your reds, and 47-51 degrees for your whites) with relatively high humidity. The reasoning behind that is to keep the cork moist (this is also why old wines are stored on their side, so the liquid is up against the cork) so it won’t dry out and crack, oxidizing it and ruining your wine.

When you keep a bottle with paper attached to it in that kind of environment, humidity and age will slowly stain the label or encourage the growth of mold. This doesn’t affect the wine, as you can wipe it off. But if you got yourself a 1959 Lafite with a pristine label, I’d make sure to give it the crook eye. Or at least the once over. Actually, I’d give the seller the finger for making a mockery of Lafite-Rotschild.

Other ways to spot a fake label include checking for spelling errors, incorrect font sizes and text placement, and incorrect accents and design touches. If you are a budding collector, keep a copy of Jancis Robinson‘s The Oxford Companion To Wine around. Not only is it a fantastic book written by a woman with encyclopedic knowledge of wine (Ms. Robinson is Queen Elisabeth II’s sommelier.), but it has original label imagery to match your wine against.

With the liquid itself (which you can see in the neck if you hold it up to the light looking up from the bottom at an angle), a very old wine should not have a bright red or purple appearance. Age will always tinge your wines ruby to brown, and your whites will turn a darker deep gold-straw color. Also, over the course of years, wines will start to evaporate and the fill level will decrease. If you have a wine bottle filled into the neck from 1937, you got some faux vino.

The capsule itself is a good indicator as well. A capsule is the covering around the top of the neck that protects the cork. If you can match up your capsule with others of the same vintage, that will assist in verifying you have the real McCoy.

Finally, the glass itself is a good indicator. Modern glassmaking techniques were not established in wine bottling until the famous 1982 Bordeaux vintage made its appearance.

Creating a fake is not always making a fake label, and filling it with Welch’s or Yellow Tail. A more creative fraud is now seen in relabeling. Sure, it might be a Chateau Latour. But not the famed 1961 Chateau Latour. So what, you say? Well the difference between a 1961 and any other vintage could mean about $5,000 in change per bottle.

Up until recently, a major auction house (not to name names, but their initials are Zachy’s) has been purported to knowingly pass on fake wine. While things sound bleak, there is light at the end of the tunnel. With the new found popularity and cash flow in the wine industry, most auction houses are cleaning up their image and not living by the old standard “Buyer Beware.”

So yeah, we got a problem on our hands in the wine world right now. Its popularity has brought out the worst in some folks. But the best of the best are fighting back, from using microchips on barrels and labels, to creating special paper that has a watermark that can only be detected using a scanner. Some chateaux are even inventing their own ink for printing labels specifically for the 2005 Bordeaux vintage, which is hailed as the modern benchmark for wine, and the highest scoring since 1961 (yes, it beat 1982). Recently, DNA testing at UC Davis that was used to determine a grape’s heritage is now also being used to identify fake wine.

What about the punishment for getting caught? It’s gotta be serious, considering the amounts of money involved, right? Not so much. For you budding vintner’s out there, let me pass this advice on to you directly from a trusted source:

‘To put it bluntly, the risk of detection, investigation, prosecution and conviction of an offence of fraud is small, and if you are unlucky enough to be caught, the sentence is probably tolerable for the gains you have made. Whereas trafficking in drugs or people or arms may result in increased risk of detection and certainly more severe penalties.’
– Lord Goldsmith, UK Attorney General – 8.9.2003

So, if anyone out there has some capital lying around and wants to get involved in a new business endeavor, shoot me an email. I got some ideas.

Collin Flatt is a former Beer Pong champ turned oenophile. Collin Flatt spends his tax refunds on wine. Collin Flatt has his Bachelor’s Degree in drinking and is getting his Master’s Degree in winemaking. Collin Flatt is working on an Arctice Splash Cuvee. Collin Flatt writes about wine for Phoodie.info.

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