Decanter World Wine AwardsPonsot worked 'closely with FBI' for Kurniawan arrest
- Wednesday 14 March 2012
Laurent Ponsot 'found fakes everywhere'
The case against Rudy Kurniawan is that in 2008 he consigned at auction some 84 bottles purporting to be from Domaine Ponsot in Burgundy, including one from 1929, which was impossible as the estate did not begin bottling until 1934.
Since Februrary 2010, Laurent Ponsot of Domaine Ponsot has been working closely with the FBI team which arrested Kurniawan on 8 March.
In 2008 Ponsot had flown to New York to ensure that the counterfeit bottles of his family domaine’s Clos St Denis, listed in the Acker Merrall & Condit auction, did not appear. The fake wines had an estimated value of between US$600,000 and US$1.3m.
Ponsot also handed over evidence that led to Kurniawan’s arrest, including notes written by Kurniwan claiming that the fake wines were purchased from someone he named as ‘Pak Hendra’.
Kurniwan gave two contact numbers for this dealer, one of which was a fax number and the other a shopping mall.
According to Ponsot, the wine labelled as Domaine Ponsot was allegedly over €1m of inexpensive, pre-1980s Burgundy wine bought from negociants.
‘I wasn’t sure at first if Rudy was a victim or predator,’ said Ponsot. ‘But when he gave me those false phone numbers, I knew it was the latter.’
As part of his campaign against counterfeiting, Ponsot has been working to find out who possesses fake Burgundy and who sold it to them.
He said he has come across many fake Burgundies, including Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Rousseau, Roumier and his own Domaine Ponsot in people’s cellars.
‘I found fakes everywhere, not just in Hong Kong or China but in Europe and in many American collectors’ cellars,’ he said.
Ponsot also spoke to European sommeliers who helped him identify people who requested and paid for empty bottles. He passed the information to relevant local police.
In China, especially in Guangdong province, empty fine wine bottles are worth US$50 per bottle or more, depending on the label.
Fraudulent wines are a serious worldwide problem, Ponsot said, adding, ‘I believe 80% of pre-1980 Burgundy sold at auction is fake.’
Have your say!
WineStar
March 16 01:03
I wonder how many of these fakes were given high ratings by Robert Parker and his tribe of unreliable sniffers? Will have to do some research.
Mark Gough
March 15 20:44
Well done Laurent Ponsot.
I have long been full of admiration for him and his domaine on the winemaking front & his work re fakes, and Kurniawan particularly, only increases my regard for him. That he actually had to appear at the auction to get Acker Merrall to pull the dodgy wines was ridiculous - what does that say about the auction house ?
Keep up the good work Laurent. My afternoon spent at the domaine some years ago, with a superb winemaker so generous with his time was one of my best ever visits on the Cote, remembered with great fondness.
Anthony Rose
March 15 10:39
Good for Laurent Ponsot for his work in pursuing the counterfeiters. Yet if Ponsot says : ‘I think that his accomplices should also be identified and arrested’, then it’s not clear why is he also saying in the same breath that ‘in the current state of the investigation, I keep this information secret’? If there’s an implication that he’s not talking because he’s already revealed their identities to the investigating authorities, so be it. But that idea would seem to be negated by his rather strange suggestion that ‘Rudy himself should denounce his informants and his accomplices’. Firstly you can imagine the plea-bargaining that would go on if he did so and secondly how credible a source of information can we expect Rudy Kurniawan to be? I suppose it will all come out in the wash sooner or later. Meanwhile, he’s keeping us on tenterhooks.
Fred
March 15 10:26
"The case against Rudy Kurniawan is that in 2008 he consigned at auction some 84 bottles purporting to be from Domaine Ponsot in Burgundy".
Come on Decanter.
The case against Kurniawan, as you must know because it is in the indictment,is also that he tried to sell fake Burgundies at auction in the Spectrum / Vanquish sale.
The sale reported here as "Spetrum and Vanquish: Kurniawan wines are not in sale".