In August, Ideal Wine Company has seen the world largest counterfeit wine dealer being sentenced to 10 year in jail on his fraudulent business spanned over eight years.
Rudy Kurniawan was sentenced by the US government last month, and has been described as “a bold grandiose, unscrupulous but destined-to-fail con” by the US District Judge, Richard Berman.
Only the Best and Genuine Wine Selections from Ideal Wine Company
At Ideal Wine Company, we dedicate ourselves to only bring you the highest quality luxury wines from the global market. We are the trusted luxury wine seller in the UK, and we are doing all we can to ensure the wine that you purchased from us are 100% genuine.
This week we have also release a quick guide on how to spot counterfeit wine, you can read more about it here.
The Tricks
In Kurniawan’s case, even the most experienced collectors had failed to spot his ‘craftsmanship’.
According to The Australian news site, “Kurniawan used his sophisticated palate to mix and blend lower-price wines so that they mimicked the taste, colour and character of rare and expensive wines. He then poured the mixtures into empty bottles of rare and expensive wines he obtained from restaurants and other sources and affixed counterfeit wine labels he had created.”
The Remorse
Kurniawan wrote a letter to Judge Berman to plead for leniency,
“Discovering rare wines became an obsession and I relentlessly pursued acquiring them wherever I could uncover them. … The obsession attracted focus and I admit that I enjoyed it. … I believed these individuals had been my close friends and I wanted to be accepted in their globe.”
He continues with a remorse:
“I now realize that all this was false and pretentious and that my priorities were completely out of order. The issues I did to keep this illusion had been so foolish. The end was inevitable.”
Remember, always buy your luxury wine from a trusted seller. If unsure, search around the internet to see if anything has been mentioned about the company selling counterfeit wines.
