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1 1 0 V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T | M a r - A p r 2 014 w w w. v w m m e d i a . c o m END POST TYLER COLMAN n late 2013, a jury at the federal court- house in New York C i t y r e n d e r e d a verdict: guilty both counts. But it wasn't a murder or money laundering trial. Instead, the case was about wine counterfeiting. Federal prosecutors accused Rudy Kurniawan of running a "wine factory" out of his home in Los Angeles. When the FBI raided the residence at 6 a.m. one 2012 day, they found drawers full of rare labels, bottles soaking in the sink to remove their labels, cleanskins (wines whose labels do not list the wine producer's name) placed on a treadmill – a great metaphor since Kurniawan requested empty bottles sent back to him after big dinners. Investigators also found funnels, bags of corks, recork- i n g e q u i p m e n t , a n d s o m e b o t t l e s o f C a l i f o r n i a w i n e with handwritten notations of which old and rare French wines they most resem- bled by aroma and taste. Active in counterfeiting from 2004 to 2012, Kur- niawan, a dashing and f l a s h y e t h n i c C h i n e s e citizen of Indonesia, sold more than $35 million worth of wine at auc- tion in 2006 alone. After seven days of proceed- ings, the jury needed less than two hours to convict Kurniawan of mail and wire fraud for selling fake wines to wealthy collec- tors. His lawyer vowed to appeal. Wine counterfeiting is in many ways the "per- fect crime." Expensive bottlings are simply flipped from one collector to the next as tro- phies. When the wines are even- tually opened, the collector may not have a handle on what, for example, a 1945 Domaine de la Romanée Conti-Romanée Conti should taste like (excusable, since DRC's Aubert de Villaine testified at the trial that his winery doesn't have any more bottles of the wine to use as a comparison). Or the bottle's owner could be a label-chaser with little wine knowl- edge at all. And there's the fact that the person pulling the cork on one of these rare bottles isn't likely to be hovering around the poverty line and can afford the loss. Some may snigger at the perceived social justice angle. Will the Kurniawan decision have a chilling effect on wine counterfeiting in the United States? Yes. William Koch, the Florida billionaire who has a 43,000-bottle wine cellar, is angry about wine fraud. In the lower Manhattan trial, he testified that he esti- mates 25% of his cellar, by value, to be fakes. General rule: Try not to anger a billionaire. Koch h a s b e e n t h e d r i v i n g force behind the Depart- ment of Justice's crack- down on wine fraud, and he said that he has spent approximately $25 mil- lion of his own money combating the problem. C o u n t e r f e i t i n g o f wine is likely to dimin- ish in the States. Collec- tors are now extremely wary, the FBI is cracking d o w n , a n d K u r n i a w a n faces up to 40 years in prison (his sentencing is scheduled for April 24). However, as long as wine prices remain ele- vated, the appeal of counterfeiting will remain. According to Michael Egan, a fine-wine expert who testi- fied at the trial, counterfeiting has shifted to China. But those bottles could make their way back to the U.S., willingly or not. All producers of fine wine should implement anti-counterfeiting mea- sures, such as bubble codes, holo- grams or special seals on closures. Tracking of each numbered bottle is essential so that a curious consum- er could verify the wine's prove- nance with the estate; bottles with pristine provenance have fetched premiums at auction. But in reality, it's only the rarest of the rare wines that are worth counterfeiting. Still, it's one heck of a story, and I hope that it will splash onto the silver screen. If done right, a movie version of the Kurniawan tale has many fascinating story elements: a huckster and dupes, betrayal, hubris and bling, to name a few beyond wine itself. Throw in a few car chases and a love inter- est, and audiences will lap it up. As "Sideways" demonstrated, a movie with wine at the core of a rich narrative can ignite interest in fine wine, and wine more generally. That would be the happiest ending of the counterfeiting story for the wine industry: more wine consumers. Tyler Colman, author of the wine blog Dr. Vino, teaches wine classes at New York University and the Uni- versity of Chicago, and wrote the book "Wine Politics: How Govern- ments, Environmentalists, Mob- sters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink." Comments? Please e-mail us at feedback@vwmmedia.com. (Opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of Vineyard & Winery Management.) All the Makings of a Movie