WINE SCANDALS - Did you know these scandals that shook the wine world?
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Looking back at the history of wine you will find quite a few different scandals but I have selected three scandals that left an impression on the wine world. The first one is the so-called “antifreeze scandal”. It is easy to forget today that there was a time when producers in Northern Europe were struggling to ripen their grapes. Some crafty or rather criminal winemakers came up with the idea to add diethylene glycol to wine to make it taste sweet without having to go through the arduous of, you know, letting the grapes ripen.
Diethylene glycol is also used as antifreeze, and it can be poisonous in larger quantities but for the wineries, it was an easy way to increase profits.
This became common practice among a small number of wineries in Austria and some of these tainted wines were also sold in bulk to German bottlers.
They managed to keep it secret for a few years but the scandal unfolded, when one producer, who only own a small tractor, tried to claim large amounts of antifreeze as a business expense. The reaction in the media was extreme and the news went around the globe. The story made the front page of the New York Times. Glycol was the word of the year in 1985 in Germany.
Austrian wine was banned in several countries including the UK
The first time I saw a reference to this scandal was in the Simpsons episode "The Crepes of Wrath" when two French winemakers are arrested after putting antifreeze in wine and making poor Bart drink it.
As a result of all the unwanted attention exports of Austrian wine plummeted from 45 million liters a year to just 4.4m and also the reputation of German wines was tarnished.
The dangers of Diethylene glycol were exaggerated as the levels in most wines were generally too low to cause lethal results or even health risks
The highest level was 48 g/l in a bottle of Welschriesling Beerenauslese from Burgenland.
Another far more lethal scandal is widely unknown: in 1986 a winemaker in Italy mixed methanol into his wine. Twenty-three people died and more than 90 were hospitalized.
The positive side of this story is that the Austrian wine industry enacted strict wine laws and spend a great deal of effort in rebuilding its reputation.
Let's move on to another scandal which was even turned into a book:
The Jefferson bottles.
This is one of the scandals that tells you a lot about the archaic way the wine trade sometimes operates.
Let’s start with a question: If a German music manager approached you and offered you some bottles of 1787 Chateau Lafite owned by Thomas Jefferson without disclosing his source, would you spend six figures Dollars for it?
The German music manager was Hardy Rodenstock and he became famous for locating the world's rarest wines. He has hosted exclusive over-the-top wine tastings with wines from the best estates going back to the 18th century and some of the most famous wine tasters came from Jancis Robinson to Robert Parker.
He claimed that the bottles were discovered in Paris and that the inscription Laffite Th. J." referred to Chateaux Lafite and Thomas Jefferson - Thomas Jefferson was a wine lover - so that part of the story makes sense but all the rest doesn’t really.
Experts from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation raised serious doubts about the authenticity of those bottles. And think about this: How many bottles in your collection have your initials engraved into them? Have you ever seen somebody do something like this?
The Forbes family did not care too much and they stored the bottle in terrible conditions so that at some point the shrunken cork dropped back into the bottle destroying whatever was left of the wine.
The story became more interesting when US businessman Bill Koch bought some of those bottles in 1988.
He filed a lawsuit in 2006 after realizing that he had been defrauded and spent millions of private investigators. What followed were different trials and all of the accused claimed they did not know.
After diving deep into the story it seems like Rodenstock had access to far too many great wines in large-format bottles.
Koch's private investigator claimed that the bottles were probably old but the engraving suggesting that the wine was Lafite owned by Thomas Jefferson was added with a modern dentists drill - and la voila: The most expensive bottle of wine.
You might think that people learned from their mistakes and that the industry became more careful and less naïve … think again cause here comes the story of Dr. Conti himself: Rudy Kurniawan.
The greatest scandal for me was seeing a bottle of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti La Tache Grand Cru in a wine shop in Whittier, CA being sold for $35 in 1978 and thinking that it was too expensive and buying a Heitz Martha's Vineyard 1970 for $15 instead.
I was offered a DRC case of 1995 in 2001 by a hotel, where they had a tasting of their other case of DRC.
They thought, hey either we might sell it over 10 yrs or get rid of this 2nd case now.
I turned them down when they wanted $4000 for the case, I was thinking more like $3000.... Jeezus, its probably $50k now.
U funny♡
DRC per bottle same price as an oz of gold approx in the 70s
@@barath4545 More like$100K.
The Heitz was probably quite nice 😳😇🍸
@@shaunsandow2073 Almost as good as the 1968.
In Las Vegas, more Petrus 1982 is drunk each year than was ever produced.
You gotta love Vegas - fake to it’s core. I recall a conversation with a boisterous American woman…’why would you bother going to Paris to see the Eifell tower when we’ve got a new one here’…what a dickhead.😳
I’m sure she loves the Vegas 82’ Petrus
As an Italian I'm both glad and surprised to not have my country mentioned
yeah i remember the brunello scandal in i think 2008 right?
I am coming for you too 😉
Shut up ure not Italian, just here to stir up **** against them.
Also the methanol in Barolo, 1986, I mean...
@@ilBBoyMoro never in Barolo, ie was cheap barbera.
Great idea for a video. Austria sure has rebounded and Wine Austria is a benchmark as a wine promotion body in Europe!
Rudy is free now!! Good luck to all those rich guys back in Indonesia 😂
These 3 wine scandals that you mentioned are probably the biggest ones from the past 30 years or so. I can't say which one is my "favorite", but the Austrian anti-freeze wine scandal changed the wine industry for the better. As Austria totally changed its wine laws/regulations and now has some of the strictest in the world and even though their production is pretty small quality is very high.
The Rudy Kurniawan scandal was the most outrageous and hardest to believe as it was obviously a case of something being too good to be true is often enough not true and/or a scam. The fact that so many millionaires and billionaires got swindled out of large amounts of money is hard to believe.
But a lack of knowledge about wine together with wanting to impress people and drinking wine for prestige rather than enjoyment and pleasure probably contributed to it becoming so big. Sour Grapes was interesting, and it did lead to greater awareness, caution and wine collectors and drinkers paying greater attention to provenance and a wine's origin.
Worth mentioning is also the Brunello scandal, of 2008, when several of producers of the area were incriminated with making the wine with grapes sourced outside the Brunello area.
Let's not forget about Sassicaia scandal in Sicily.
Not a fascinating story, a tragic one instead, but I think you should consider to talk about the "methanol" scandal in Italy, when several brands of cheap wine (mostly barbera) had been added with the alchool above mentioned and this caused the death of many people and for others blindness and permanent damages. Thank you for your job.😊
My favorite of the scandals are the Rudy Kurnwaiwan ones, I read up about it in the Spectator back at the time and loved the documentary film about it. Cheers
Just bought a bottle of Gewürztraminer yesterday, Malat "Crazy Creatures." It's delicious.
The methanol scndal in the 80's in Italy was huge: 18 people died. I'm surprised it didnt get mentioned
Great video as always, was waiting for you to cover the Brunello scandals. Maybe in part 2
Great video! It's not a scandal but has been a revolution in the wine world :"the judgment of Paris in 1976, California vs France " , maybe an idea for the next video
I met Rudy when he came to the restaurant I was the Chef Sommelier at. His talent for blind tasting was absolutely amazing. I saw him again at La Paulee in New York. He was at a table with a 6 liter bottle of Romanee Conti 1979 in front of him. He offered me a taste. The bottle carried the number 0001.
Wow! Interesting story
Great topic, very informative
Super interesting topic! I really enjoy the diversity in you videos. Thank you for another great one. /T.
Very cool Konstantin! Interesting content. I learned about the Sassicaya one from Wineking.
A great diversion from the usual, love it
Great video Konstantin
Really like this format!
Great video! The Sour Grapes scandal is my favorite.
You’re the most entertaining wine expert on TH-cam! Thanks for another great video.
The Premier Cru Berkeley wine merchants scandal! Check it out. I actually bought thousands of dollars worth of wine from them over many years and in the end only lost about $800 worth of wine they never delivered on. I was completely stupid because a friend in the business told me they were about to go down but I couldn't help myself and placed one last order on some futures where the price was to good to pass up (duh). Anyway, I came out way ahead but I know of several people who lost tens of thousands of dollars (and the folks who made the pyramid collapse lost hundreds of thousands).
Bernie Madoff would have been proud.
Love this video. Sour Grapes is a fascinating watch.
I kinda wanna have one of the rudy wines. That'd be a great story to tell
Really great to have some background stories like this.. Hugely interesting! Not so much a scandal, but perhaps it should be is, for me, the practice of putting raw oak chips into steel to give that horrible, obvious oaking flavour you sometimes get in mass produced reds.. I'd far rather have no oak flavour than that. Nice one Konstantin! 🌟🍇👍
Sour grapes - great documentary! Highly recommended
Interesting! Thanks!
I love your videos! I'm keep hoping you're going to do a video on the Northern Rhone. I would love to hear your thoughts on producers such as JL Chave and Jamet.
Hey Konstantin, great video! I recall seeing Sour Grapes a couple of years back and the pictures from Rudy's house were impressive (and not in the best sense)... About Wine related scandals I think what happened to Court of Master Sommeliers in 2020 was quite sad
I second that. Broke my heart a tiny bit. 😥
I liked the sour grapes one the most. Rudy must've had an amazing palate in order to fabricate amazing wines by blending a slew of other wines and some additives. I hope he starts a YT wine channel I believe we can learn a lot from him.
I initially had the same thought, “that Rudy must’ve had an amazing palate”, but then I thought, how would a buyer even know what an ultra rare, 1 of only 8 bottles ever made, 1940ish French Bordeaux even taste like? 🤔 😊
@@simply417guy Your remark triggered a spark in my brain. What if..... Rudy was great at social engineering and meticulously picked out the people who pay big bucks for wine but who weren't the most educated nor great at tasting and understanding when a wine is majestical. I've got some friends who still smoke and when I open up a bottle for them I don't choose the one where the greatness comes from an intricate bouquet of subtle notes. I just go for big taste. Interesting thought this one is.
Maybe an even worse scandal, compared to Glycol, was the methanol scandal in 1986, mentioned in previous comments. Some Piedmontese producers used methanol to raise alcohol levels. Problem, it is toxic and some people died, many became blind. This brought a lot of distrust to wine in that period (people will remember a beer TV Spot “Birra, e sai cosa bevi” that means beer, and you know what you’re drinking). This tragedy was a pivotal point for food law development in Italy (and Europe, alongside the bovine encefalopathy illness) and also a turning point for Piedmontese wines, as so many started to invest in quality. As an example, the Barolo boys movement started after these events
The Premier Cru scandal was pretty big too.
good show Konnie
Thanks Konstantin for this entertaining video. And what a coincidence for me, as i am reading a book about scandal #2. The name of the book is Billionaire's Vinegar. Very juicy and captivating story indeed.
I liked this video a lot, and definitely would like to see others in the same vein!
Thank you Konstantin for this video. I think any one of these three stories would merit its own video, but I'm grateful for this. Whatever became of Rodenstock, anyway?
He died in 2018 and the court cases against him never lead to a conviction as far as I know…
The German wine scandal of engine coolant use was what came to mind when I saw your heading.
I know you described it differently, but how I can recall it at the time. (Aussie here) It really affected what was a great industry for German wine in this country at the time, for many years to follow. (My first "official" training in wine tasting was from the German Wine Exporters here before that time, however, was weaned on Champagne!)
But....On a smaller wine scandal level......Hard to prove later, but.....
Scenario:
One visits a winery for a taste.....
Buys some bottles of the excellent samples given....
Then later, opens the wine, and it is.....Scheiße
Now, I know that can be for many reasons....
But one of them could be, what they served you, isn't what they sold you!
Love your work, Merci
Marc D - downunder
Great video ! Indeed, the damage RUDY did is still unknown. But one has to be impressed with his palate and his ability to blend wines and fool a lot of 'experts / collectors''....
I'm interested in knowing if Rudy's counterfeit wine was actually good. The show indicated he has an amazing skill in tasting wine.
Very interesting.
One that I lived through in the industry was the Gianfranco Soldera scandal. Supposedly an ex-employee angers the winery at night, opens the spigots, and almost the entirety of 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, etc are dumped onto the floor. HOWEVER, based on comments and behavior afterwards, there are unsubstantiated rumors that it was actually just an insurance play all along. Soldera was a unique personality and not beloved by all (RIP)
The collapse of elite Sherri-Lehmann wine shop in midtown Manhattan was quite a scandal
Some years ago I read that Las Vegas has sold more '82 Petrus that the winery has produced.
Wow 1985 was a wild year. (Also the year I was born haha)
More wine scandals please!
This was a very cool video
I love how Austrian wine makers messed up but learned from it an it turned around the whole scene for the good
I thought it was mainly a Dutchman who was behind the glycol fraude ...
A wonderful topic to cover - I’m sure it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I know certain bars top off their “top shelf” spirits with lesser brands (This happens a lot in Vegas - single malt tastes a lot like Johnny Walker Red, hmmm) However, are there examples of regular practice at restaurants around wine - not topping off, but misrepresenting?
One question for you- can you cover wine additives and how (if at all possible) to determine which wines contain those additives ? I know it’s more common to fine additives in lower priced wines, but not always….
im from austria and some areas from burgenland could stil not recover 100% from the glycol scandal. on average wines from burgenland are typically sold 20-30% cheaper than wines from lower austria or styria with the same quality. one reason for me to visit the area around the neusiedlersee once a year to stock up on reds and on rich white wines. you can get some really high quality blaufränkisch, chardonnay and cabernet for 15€ per bottle.
The Carolina Wine Company in North Carolina was named one of the top wine retailers in the country, with temperature controlled storage. They would regularly offer futures at reasonable prices for hard to get wines and relatively unknown wines at bargain prices that turned out to be great.
Unfortunately, they were using the proceeds from new futures sales to pay for other wines that had already been purchased, as it was shipped.
I lost a not insubstantial amount of money as I was one of the ones holding the "hot potato" when this business practice came to light and the business had to declare bankruptcy. I was in good company, as the governor of North Carolina and Itzhak Perlman also both lost money.
More than the money, what I miss most is the wine that was never delivered but I had paid for and was in my "mental cellar," including '05 Chateau Margaux and a few bottles of Royal Tokakji Essencia.
That must hurt!
Wow. Hadn't heard about that one. Sounds like the same exact schemeas the Premier Cru one in Berkeley CA that I mentioned above. John Fox from Premier Cru got sentences to six years in (a predictably cushy) jail (he just got out!). Did anybody get sent down in the Carolina Wine Co?
@@someoneelse2262 This took place in 2009, or at least the bankruptcies, personal and corporate, were filed then, but I don't remember a criminal case. A quick and not extensive Google search did not bring one up up.
I'm not sure if the owner, Chrish Peel, wanted to commit fraud, or just got behind and then kept dancing as fast as he could, delivering a quality product, good value for money, up until the day he couldn't.
@@KonstantinBaumMasterofWine It did, but luckily there was other wine with which to console myself, including wines bought through them.
Do you know anything about Terre du Lion, a St Julien I got from them at a ridiculously low price, that was delicious for years?
It was reputed to be adjacent to the Leoville las Cases vineyard, and in the family, but vines too young to use. It disappeared after 2009, I think, the story being it was finally being blended into some of the lesser LLC labels. None of that may be true, of course.
Thanks for all the excellent content!
A history from the pinot of a winemaker:
Customer orders 12 bottles of aged wine and brings them back as he considered them corked. In case the real problem was removing the cork without breaking. He destroyed all corks and did Not taste any of the bottles. He showed up 2 days after opening and the wines were still quite alive but not willing to pay or understand
Gr8 video, Petrus and DRC r the most counterfeited wines n the world
No favourite scandal but maybe you could do another one about this Bordeaux-Wine-Scandal whose trials have been held recently? Anyway thanks for the video!
Interesting. Give More stories
Nice video: maybe you can also make a video on German wine in the seventies?
Did u taste Le Tapie (the red one on jaques). I love it.
No I haven’t
Heh, heh, heh. W. C. Fields said "never give a sucker an even break". More money than brains.
Great summary. Not a scandal per se, but the book "Billionaire's Vinegar" makes for a great read. Also, not really a scandal by the "Judgement of Paris" is also great story of the quirkiness of the wine industry (and the subject of a great movie, Bottle Shock).
Thank you for the recommendations
I was working for Pieroth when the scandal was revealed. We had to do some fancy stepping at appointments! Although looked down upon, we actually had some outstanding wines especially from the Nahe. A client and I shared boar burgers with a Nahe Qualitatswein and he bought 2 cases. Oh, and that Mosel Auslese!
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Konstantin, I have a question for you and potentially an idea for another video. The question is, what is the best way to go for finding the best value in bordeaux between buying second wines of top chateau vs buying the top wine from lesser known, and thus less expensive, chateau from the same appellation?
And by top chateau, I don't mean first growths, but well regarded chateau whose first wine goes for several hundred dollars. For example a comparison of Les Griffons de Pichon Baron vs a Ch. Haut Bages Liberal. Similarly priced for under $100 but one is second wine of a Ch. whose first wine is $300 and other is top wine from a less prestigious chateau
I would say definitely buy top wine from lesser known châteaux
@@KonstantinBaumMasterofWine thanks for the reply. I will put this to the test!
In the early 70's, Port producers had to get their fortifying spirit from the governmental IVP. A lab tested the completed wine and found the spirit used was thousands of years old and probably petroleum based rather than grape based. All Port from 1972-1973 had to be destroyed.
Wow … never heard that story before. Is there an article on that?
@@KonstantinBaumMasterofWine I've talked to a number of family run Port producers who discuss it. I've tasted a1973 White Colheita which was technically illegal, but the family kept a few bottles. (Not for sale of course.)
Dr. Conti made indeed some huge mistakes, but on the other hand we have to admit that he managed to recreate the perfect replica, fooling people who are have tried and collect some of the most expensive wines in the world. I agree with Konstantin though that retailers and wine makers should work together to minimize counterfeit.
Schloss Schönborn in the Rheingau is an interesting story too. Perfect example for the work of german food safety authorities to not only ensure food safety but also faire competition. Nevertheless i would like to try one of those "illegally" produces wines as they supposedly taste phenomenal!
You should make one of Rudy's recipes sometime for a video just to see how it is
For the next volume, let’s talk about the Burgundians and other French producers adding Algerian and Tunisian bulk wine to plump up unripe vintages.
Biggest wine scandal I can think of is that time I drank way too much in the company of my mother-in-law. I’ll leave it to your imagination….
😱
I watched Sour Grapes when it was on one of the streaming services and it is some funny, funny stuff. Features the third Koch brother.
Worst scandal for me is being priced out of the burgundy market
Just after your video I watched Sour Grapes (for the second time). It's a great documentary. My main question about it remains: Did Rudy Kurniawan really have the amazing wine palate and knowledge that so many in the documentary say he did and if so how did he acquire it being so young and having no evidence of serious wine training? I'm thinking you have far more knowledge, training, and expertise about wines than he did. Would appreciate your thoughts on the matter. Appreciate the fact that you keep coming up with interesting ways to talk about wine.
That’s hard to say. He might have been able to make people believe that he is a great taster, just like he made them believe he is a rich kid.
To be honest 48g per litre is quite a lot - to put it in perspective, wine containing 12 % alcohol by volume contains about 95g per litre of ethanol.
Yes, but this was the highest level ever recorded. Most wines had far lower levels and the risks were greatly exaggerated
What is the theme music used in your videos?
🍷 so scandalous!
i have alot of Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, Eiswein from vintages below 1980, could it still be poisonous?(Mostly from Rust,Neusidl-Burgenland)
I first heard about the antifreeze scandal in the Simpsons episode as well.
Time is passing by...
I wonder if wines bought at Sotheby’s wine store are the real deal or could they be unrealized fakes?
I just knew we used it to keep the soap from freezing in the winter as a professional window cleaner. haha.
when 2 a day recommended is 1.5liters. lol.
That's hilarious. I was thinking of the same Episode of the Simpsons when I had first heard of this. Awesome
😊
sour grapes is an amazing documentary 😅
missing about Narzole 1986
I think you left out the "metanolo" scandal from Brunello few decades ago
A big scandal today is that there are wine experts who rate wine that can't be serious in any way. For example there is Luca Maroni who to me is the biggest fake of all.
How about Brunello Gate?
I fucking love Sour Grapes. I rewatch it from time to time
I am anyway like old wine but only if it is in good condition. Most difference here create cork. In my world time for wine is going very fast. And most important to me is feeling of berries in wine taste. From this year i using only ruber corks for wines. But with my technology even in this case i not sure about final results.
Goodness why couldn't they just put sugar in the wine to make it sweeter!
Brunellogate or course
apparently nerello mascalese was imported from etna and sold as barolo by the mafia in the 80s. I heard this in a wine bar in sicily so I can't comment on its veracity
I don’t know if this is a Scandal, but I’d love your opinion on this. There are lots of articles floating around saying that it’s a myth that you need to store wine on its side, and some university did some study or something showing it wasn’t true. Have you heard of this? If so; what are your thoughts and experience on this?
shorter periods it may be fine but the cork will dry out absolutely if stored upright. no way around that law of nature
@@veroman007 yeah they claimed that since there’s 100% humidity inside the bottle it would never dry out, but I think their study didn’t test anything more than 10 years
Scientific research suggests that storing bottles upright doesn’t affect the flexibility of the cork while also protecting the cork from the wine’s acid, tannins, alcohol. Difficult to say what this would look like after 30 years
Another more recent scandal, if I recall correctly, was the fake Cotes Du Rhone wines being shipped everywhere.
Diethylene glycol that was added to the wine was not anti-freeze yet Ethylene Glycol is. It was sensationalist reporting using the word 'anti-freeze' that got people concerned and although no-one died from this doctoring I remember very well the harm it did to Austrian wines in particular although German wines were also tainted by this scandal.
My understanding is, that Diethylene can also be used as Antifreeze.
You've downplayed Sotheby's role in perpetuating the scams. Too much money in auctioning rare wine for them to curate and prevent frauds from entering the marketplace, instead they promoted them.
Christie’s with Michael Broadbent was very involved in the Jefferson bottles. Sotheby’s less so. I didn’t downplay anyone’s role but there is far more to those stories than what fits into a 9 min video.
the Bordeaux wine scandal involving Spanish and other wines posing as Bordeaux.
Yeah, the glycol scandal is still talked about in Austria. I joke about it every now and then when I drink Austrian wines.
Es ist schon seltsam was man macht, um weniger zu arbeiten.
Then there are the horse meat for beef scandals, extra virgin olive oils, turmeric for saffron scandals. We should not forget the chic brand name scandals for clothes, accessories or shoes either. We could add to that precious stones for jewels worn. So I can imagine a gathering of people, tasting sketchy wines, eating horse meat canapes, with wearing fake clothes and jewels. "It is all an illusion as I recall, I really don't know clouds at all... " th-cam.com/video/8L1UngfqojI/w-d-xo.html, Judy Collins, "Both Sides Now" recording.
Wait - no methanol scandal in Italy? 😮
Sour Grapes is excellent. I dont feel you can be too hard on the buyers, some con men are really good at what they do.
Not really a scandal, but i would love to definitively know why Australia uses the word Shiraz instead of Syrah. I have heard of everything from debunked Iran connotations to illiterate grape growers in the 19th century or maybe just a weird accent thing...what is the truth?
Châteauneuf customs busted à noria of concrete truck full of big bags filled with Vin de pays du Gard. Around 10.000 Hl
If we start on that one, the lines of tanker cars heading north in the 40s through the 80s where Algerian wines would go into Rhone wines, Rhone wines would go into Burgundy, etc. It would still happen except climate change is doing the shipping now :) And of course the freight cars of beet sugar that used to move around France right around harvest when i was a kid were always pretty impressive as well.
The biggest scandal now is the completely out of wack price of California Cabs and people still buying :)))
Maybe ' someone' buys overpriced California cabs... but we choose value as a consumer...think ITALY SPAIN...
CHILE SOUTH AFRICA with weakened currencies might offer value too.
Consider discernible CHOICES.
Quality at affordable prices.
Your call.
@@bver1149 Exactly, I stopped buying Cali wines long time ago, Old World offers much better quality/price ratio, I am not even mentioning Chile and Argentina.
That was interesting. But dude, you were taliking so fast!!!!!! Were you running out of video tape???