1 00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:19,200 And the stock down on Wall Street today as both the DOW and the S&P 500 2 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:21,200 closed at all-time highs. 3 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:27,640 If I told you that you could turn your love of wine into an investment return... 4 00:01:27,800 --> 00:01:30,280 We've seen prices go up higher than they've ever been. 5 00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:36,520 ...could you forget gold and invest in vino? 6 00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:40,080 And the bottom line is, if you want to own a fine or real wine collection, 7 00:01:40,160 --> 00:01:42,440 the time to buy is right now. 8 00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:45,080 Did you sell 1961 Château La Fleur? 9 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:47,600 I can taste the Chardonnay on the palate. 10 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:52,160 Did you sell one or more 1961 Château La Fleur magnums? 11 00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:54,160 I thought it was a little forward. 12 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:56,480 Who inspected these bottles? 13 00:01:57,680 --> 00:01:59,840 I've got elderflower, perfumed, juicy... 14 00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:01,400 Bright and leafy. 15 00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:04,080 This is the whole "power of suggestion" thing, right? 16 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:07,200 Did you have any reason to suspect that the wine was counterfeit? 17 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:38,040 Wine is alive. 18 00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:41,200 It's not a beverage. 19 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:45,520 It's not a tool. It's not a table or a plate or a car. 20 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:47,000 It's alive. 21 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:56,200 You can see how the branches of the vines are all twisting, tortuous. 22 00:02:58,040 --> 00:02:59,400 It's very traditional. 23 00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:01,800 It's an ancient pruning process, hardly ever used any more. 24 00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:04,040 We call it 'cup pruning'. 25 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:09,080 Over time, the branches have grown and now they look like statues. 26 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:14,120 It's phantasmagoric, especially now, in the fog. 27 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:18,160 But it's also a part of our history. 28 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:22,240 I am Laurent Ponsot. 29 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:24,920 Winemaker, vigneron, in Burgundy. 30 00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:33,320 I was born above a cellar in this village in Morey-Saint-Denis, 31 00:03:33,440 --> 00:03:38,000 in a family that is owning this winery since 1872. 32 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:42,240 You feel here what I call "the spirit of the vines." 33 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:49,240 As soon as I started to breathe, I had the smell of wine. 34 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:54,560 And I can say that I had some blood in my wine, not wine in my blood. 35 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:01,680 The spirit of Burgundy wines is unique, 36 00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:07,080 with the name on the label representing not only a wine, 37 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:09,560 but a culture and history. 38 00:04:14,320 --> 00:04:19,720 What people are seeing, feeling, behind the wine has no price. 39 00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:25,280 At 1,600, $1,600, order bidder 1053. 40 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:29,200 Lot 982, Romanée-Conti. '72. 41 00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:30,640 Two bottles, wow. 42 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:32,800 9,500, 10,000. 43 00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:34,960 $10,000 bid now for these at 10,000. 44 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:37,160 At $10,000, give me 11,000. 45 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:38,640 At 10,000. 46 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:41,000 $10,000 now, for 10,000. 47 00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:43,080 11,000 these now for 11,000. 48 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:44,240 Give me 12,000. 49 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:45,440 11,000. 50 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:48,960 $11,000 I have now at 11,000, it's in the orders. 51 00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:51,160 Boom for 1019. 52 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:58,160 I guess the auction scene really started in the 90's, in the dot-com boom. 53 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:00,880 Everybody was making money. 54 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:04,960 There developed this culture of very wealthy collectors 55 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:08,760 gathering at these auctions to see and be seen. 56 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:10,280 To be seen bidding. 57 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:12,760 The prices started to really escalate. 58 00:05:12,840 --> 00:05:16,800 5,500 go 6,000, 5,500 last call. 59 00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:18,320 At 5,500. 60 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:20,960 Pass then at 5,500. 61 00:05:21,080 --> 00:05:22,120 1987... 62 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:24,480 I started to get these emails. 63 00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:29,360 It was strange, I couldn't really figure out where they were coming from. 64 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:31,360 They described these evenings 65 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:34,400 where these guys, very wealthy collectors, 66 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:39,560 were drinking like 1945 Romanée-Conti, and 1955 Petrus. 67 00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:43,120 You know really, really expensive wine. 68 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:46,760 I eventually learned that these emails were coming from John Kapon, 69 00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:50,040 the head of the auction house Acker Merrall & Condit. 70 00:05:50,280 --> 00:05:55,760 OWC, 12 bottles of 1990 Romanée-Conti. 71 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:58,240 They do not make 12 bottle OWCs any more. 72 00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:00,240 I think this in fact was the last vintage in this... 73 00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:02,160 Kapon's notes were very colourful. 74 00:06:02,280 --> 00:06:04,520 He had these unusual descriptors. 75 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:08,120 Trying to make the whole tasting note more interesting 76 00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:10,200 and developing new metaphors. 77 00:06:12,080 --> 00:06:14,080 This culture kind of reached its apogee 78 00:06:14,200 --> 00:06:16,600 under the auspices of Acker Merrall & Condit 79 00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:19,760 and this group called the Angry Men, 80 00:06:19,840 --> 00:06:20,960 all of whom had nicknames 81 00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:25,240 like Mr Angry and Big Boy and Hollywood Jef. 82 00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:31,280 We missed the tequila party last night. 83 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:32,800 But, you know... 84 00:06:32,880 --> 00:06:34,680 -I think it was worth it. -It was worth it, yeah. 85 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:39,480 I drank a lot of that 1907 Madeira last night. 86 00:06:39,880 --> 00:06:41,920 -It was... -It had a lot of layers, that wine. 87 00:06:42,080 --> 00:06:45,760 Yeah, I mean, it was it was coconut, it was nutmeg, espresso. 88 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:48,080 Yeah, it was really exciting, wasn't it? 89 00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:51,760 I think the '88 has so much acidity. 90 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:53,080 It can be incredible. 91 00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:54,800 But it's more a hit-or-miss vintage than... 92 00:06:54,960 --> 00:06:56,800 The '88 has a huge amount of acidity. 93 00:06:56,920 --> 00:06:58,200 No, that's absolutely right. 94 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:04,440 '96, though, is the vintage to buy. 95 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:08,520 For anyone out there, buy '96 champagne all day. 96 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:10,480 If you can't afford that, buy '02. 97 00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:12,400 If you can't afford that, drink fucking beer. 98 00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:23,760 The best way to taste high-end wines is with a group, 99 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:25,280 because there's power in numbers. 100 00:07:26,320 --> 00:07:28,040 -Thank you. -...unique taste of it. 101 00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:33,240 Wines are really, really expensive, and so our group meets eight times a year. 102 00:07:33,360 --> 00:07:37,240 Each time one member hosts and does the wines from his cellar. 103 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:39,160 You guys drink too much together. 104 00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:41,680 You don't hold back! 105 00:07:41,760 --> 00:07:44,240 Where the "Angry Men" name came from 106 00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:46,240 is you get invited to a wine dinner 107 00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:49,280 and you bring a really nice, a great bottle of wine, okay? 108 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:52,480 And everybody else brings shit wine, bad wine. 109 00:07:52,760 --> 00:07:54,440 And so you get very angry and... 110 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:57,680 It was men who didn't want to be angry any more 111 00:07:57,760 --> 00:08:01,440 and everybody had to bring it, you know, you had to really bring it. 112 00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:04,040 Thank you very much. 113 00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:06,800 My entry into Burgundy was Rudy Kurniawan. 114 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:11,000 There was an Angry Men that Rudy had invited me to, 115 00:08:11,080 --> 00:08:12,920 and that's where I met that whole gang. 116 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:17,160 Their dinners were always over the top. Crazy. 117 00:08:17,400 --> 00:08:21,680 Breaking it out with like 100, 200 grand worth of wine in a night. 118 00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:23,280 It was pretty extraordinary. 119 00:08:25,880 --> 00:08:29,760 What these guys actually had, is what Americans call "fuck you money." 120 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:32,280 "Well, I got a $3-million bonus, 121 00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:34,200 "I'm going to take a million of that and blow it." 122 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:35,400 And that's their "fuck you money." 123 00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:36,760 They're going to do whatever they want with it. 124 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:39,800 They don't care, there's no consequences. 125 00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:44,480 And it's a kind of money that most human beings never experience. 126 00:08:45,760 --> 00:08:46,840 Here she comes. 127 00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:52,360 The fine-wine world, it's really mostly men. 128 00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:55,280 Especially when I was younger, 129 00:08:55,480 --> 00:08:58,440 I'd walk into the tastings and everybody would immediately ask, 130 00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:00,400 you know, whose date I was. 131 00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:03,520 But I had an important job. I ran a major auction house in New York. 132 00:09:04,240 --> 00:09:07,800 I bought like $50,000 worth of champagne in the last auction, 133 00:09:07,880 --> 00:09:10,040 for one of my clients 'cause his daughter's getting married. 134 00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:13,080 It was 2000 or early 2001. 135 00:09:13,240 --> 00:09:14,600 We were doing auctions 136 00:09:14,680 --> 00:09:17,720 and I started being aware of this kind of, 137 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:22,360 you know, skinny, geeky young guy that liked wine. 138 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:33,680 ...for 2,600. 139 00:09:35,080 --> 00:09:38,600 At the time he was somebody that was bidding on Pahlmeyer Merlot. 140 00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:40,960 Pahlmeyer Merlot sticks out in my mind with Rudy. 141 00:09:41,080 --> 00:09:42,760 You know, a high quality wine, 142 00:09:42,840 --> 00:09:47,120 but, you know, it's got one zero, not four zeros. 143 00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:49,040 Now 16, 17, $1,800, 144 00:09:49,120 --> 00:09:52,160 1,800 for the single bottle of La Tâche, 1985. 145 00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:55,000 1,800, $1,800 bid. At 18... 146 00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:57,880 What was really strange was 18 months later 147 00:09:57,960 --> 00:10:01,480 he reached out to me on the telephone and said that he wanted to meet with me 148 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:05,000 because he wanted to be a player in the auction scene, 149 00:10:05,160 --> 00:10:06,280 which I found kind of odd 150 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:10,360 because he had just been a geeky kid drinking Californian Merlot. 151 00:10:12,880 --> 00:10:14,000 -Hey, what's up, Rudy? -Hey, what's up, man? 152 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:15,680 -How are you doing? -How are you, man? 153 00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:17,080 -Very well. -Good, good, good. 154 00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:21,040 I brought some wines for us to drink. Can you help me with this? 155 00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:24,880 His breadth of knowledge seemed to be pretty extraordinary. 156 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:28,480 He actually taught me, you know, almost everything I know. 157 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:32,960 He was a real cult figure and everybody talked about him. 158 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:34,400 My friend. 159 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:40,120 He had this mysterious background. Where did he come from? 160 00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:44,080 Part of what created his mythology 161 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:47,880 was he had an extraordinary... Who has an extraordinary palate. 162 00:10:49,880 --> 00:10:52,920 The best palate of anyone I've ever met in my entire life. 163 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:59,320 Any wine, from California to France, any type of wine, any vintage. 164 00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:04,080 Rudy was extremely, insanely, 165 00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:07,760 unbelievably correct on all the wines. 166 00:11:12,560 --> 00:11:13,960 The art of blind tasting, 167 00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:17,240 it comes naturally, but you have to make an effort. 168 00:11:17,360 --> 00:11:18,920 You know, you really have to work at it. 169 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:22,360 You taste wine blind, you identify the wine, 170 00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:25,560 and you know, that's the badge of honour for a sommelier. 171 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:30,680 You do a little swirl and just see if there's anything with the alcohol. 172 00:11:31,160 --> 00:11:34,120 Looking at the legs, how slow or fast they fall. 173 00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:40,600 Smell it, and then it kind of just tingles off senses to your brain. 174 00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:44,360 And then you look through your rolodex in your mind 175 00:11:44,440 --> 00:11:46,640 of all these different wines you've tasted. 176 00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:48,800 And I'm thinking, "What could this be?" 177 00:11:53,360 --> 00:11:56,800 I think a wine palate is very similar to athletic ability. 178 00:12:01,880 --> 00:12:03,040 Sorry. 179 00:12:07,440 --> 00:12:10,760 Wine tasting is a lot about knowing the vocabulary 180 00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:13,720 and being able to express, using that vocabulary, 181 00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:17,000 to other wine tasters what it is that you're experiencing. 182 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:20,400 I totally get that peppery citrus that you're talking about. 183 00:12:22,920 --> 00:12:24,640 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I met Rudy. 184 00:12:26,600 --> 00:12:27,720 Tony! 185 00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:29,440 -Tony, what's happening? -What's up, Tony? 186 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:34,120 I met him at a tasting. I was very, very impressed. 187 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:38,400 He identified almost all the wines blind. 188 00:12:38,560 --> 00:12:41,880 He must have learned by drinking an enormous amount of different wines. 189 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:44,600 That's the only way to learn. 190 00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:48,560 You always wondered why and how. 191 00:12:48,760 --> 00:12:49,880 That's why you know. 192 00:12:49,960 --> 00:12:53,000 You know, 18 months and now I have, what, 193 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:55,640 pretty much like 3,000 bottles of wine, you know. 194 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:57,880 We're going to make a booklet, you know, yeah. 195 00:12:57,960 --> 00:12:59,120 Rudy's Adventures. 196 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:10,640 I met Rudy first in 2004, I believe. 197 00:13:11,360 --> 00:13:13,960 There was a luncheon for one of the producers 198 00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:16,120 and we quickly became friends. 199 00:13:17,880 --> 00:13:19,800 He was very warm to everyone. 200 00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:21,560 I really liked the guy. 201 00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:26,400 It's fun because there's a lot of wines today that I haven't tried. 202 00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:28,840 We hung out a lot and went to wine dinners. 203 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:30,680 -How you doing today? -Good, man. 204 00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:33,040 Tired, but good. 205 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:36,000 -Long trip? -From 5:00 a.m. in the morning. 206 00:13:36,520 --> 00:13:37,600 Long trip. 207 00:13:39,280 --> 00:13:41,160 Fourteen hours drive. 208 00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:43,320 -Where'd you drive from? -LA, man. 209 00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:45,120 LA, man. 210 00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:48,800 The people in this town, excuse my language, are full of shit. 211 00:13:49,040 --> 00:13:50,600 But not with Rudy. 212 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:51,760 Just wakes me up, you know. 213 00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:56,800 Nothing he did was short of real class, warmth and graciousness. 214 00:13:57,000 --> 00:13:58,600 You like... You like everything so far? 215 00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:03,680 For my birthday he gave me a bottle of, I think a Pol Roger '49 champagne, 216 00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:06,000 which is incredible. 217 00:14:06,480 --> 00:14:09,480 -What do you have right now? -Colgin, interesting. 218 00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:14,080 -Yeah? -Very different from the Herb lamb. 219 00:14:14,560 --> 00:14:15,680 Yeah? 220 00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:20,720 I don't know if it's 100% Cab because... Like a Meritage. 221 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:25,160 He was just a lover of wine. Is a lover of wine. 222 00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:28,600 I keep talking in the past because it's still very strange. 223 00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:38,120 He never said something to me that I could look at and find was untrue. 224 00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:41,560 But he didn't ever say that much. 225 00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:46,640 I was a reporter and I was curious about the auction market, 226 00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:51,720 and I sat there at the back of Christie's and I noticed a very, very young man 227 00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:55,880 spending a lot of money surrounded by people that I knew 228 00:14:55,960 --> 00:15:00,000 were movie producers, clearly the focus of everyone's attention. 229 00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:02,800 That's a story. 230 00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:06,200 Who is this guy? And why is he spending this kind of money? 231 00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:08,360 And what does he want to do with his wine? 232 00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:12,680 Today I can't, today's overbooked. Tomorrow, call me. I might... 233 00:15:13,160 --> 00:15:16,760 It took months to get him to sit down and have a cup of coffee with me. 234 00:15:17,080 --> 00:15:18,640 I've got to go in five minutes. 235 00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:20,760 I have a big Burgundy tasting. 236 00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:23,240 -Let me move around before... -Go ahead! Go ahead! Go ahead! 237 00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:24,440 I'll talk to you soon. 238 00:15:24,920 --> 00:15:27,760 Let me have the honour to try my wine. 239 00:15:27,880 --> 00:15:29,640 It was like another month or two 240 00:15:29,720 --> 00:15:34,200 before I got him to sit down and actually have an interview with me. 241 00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:38,200 He proceeded to serve some of his great wines. 242 00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:42,800 Oh, my God, this is... It's corked. 243 00:15:45,720 --> 00:15:46,920 No. 244 00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:52,320 He lived with his mother in Arcadia 245 00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:54,800 and the people around him would say 246 00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:57,640 that his family owned the Heineken distributorship 247 00:15:57,760 --> 00:15:59,160 for all of China. 248 00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:00,360 Fabulously wealthy, 249 00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:05,160 and he was on a million-dollar-a-month allowance for his wine, 250 00:16:05,280 --> 00:16:08,960 and when I asked Rudy about this stuff he said, "I don't talk about my family", 251 00:16:09,040 --> 00:16:10,480 and he wouldn't tell me anything. 252 00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:18,600 I sort of assumed he was a rich kid looking for something to do. 253 00:16:20,960 --> 00:16:23,200 The auction houses were giddy. 254 00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:26,920 No one had ever spent that much money that fast. 255 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:33,320 It was ruining the quiet little club that the old guys had. 256 00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:39,040 I've been collecting for 38 years I guess. 257 00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:44,880 So, I've got, you know, lots of DRC labels 258 00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:51,200 and they're all categorised by particular domains or groups of domains. 259 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:57,040 There's Ponsots in here. I've got mostly from the '80s. 260 00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:00,000 That's some major wine, yeah, that's his, one of his best. 261 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:02,880 Sometimes you only get to taste them once in your life 262 00:17:02,960 --> 00:17:05,840 if you get to taste them at all, so it's kind of fun. 263 00:17:08,120 --> 00:17:11,080 I was introduced to Rudy by John Kapon 264 00:17:11,160 --> 00:17:14,120 at an Acker auction event over in Beverly Hills. 265 00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:16,120 I want to drink Burgundies. 266 00:17:16,880 --> 00:17:18,520 That's me, of course, you know. 267 00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:21,880 He said, "Well, you're a Burgundy collector, what Burgundies do you like?" 268 00:17:22,120 --> 00:17:25,280 And I said, "Well, my favourites are probably Roumier, Rousseau 269 00:17:25,360 --> 00:17:27,320 "and DRC,- Romanée-Conti." 270 00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:31,480 You got that right, my friend, you got that right. 271 00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:34,200 Right after that he said, "You should buy wines with me", 272 00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:37,600 he said, "I buy cellars and collections in Europe all the time." 273 00:17:39,080 --> 00:17:40,640 And then I remember Rudy asked me, 274 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:43,480 "What's the oldest Roumier you've ever had?" 275 00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:45,560 And I said it was a 1969. 276 00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:48,800 And I told him I'd been lucky enough to find a couple at auction, 277 00:17:48,880 --> 00:17:50,400 that they're real hard to find. 278 00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:51,640 And then Rudy said, 279 00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:54,080 "Well, you know, in the last year I've had 280 00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:57,880 "1945, 1949, 1955 281 00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:00,800 "and 1962 Roumier Bonnes-Mares." 282 00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:07,240 He picked the greatest red Burgundy vintages from that era. 283 00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:09,400 I was just flabbergasted. 284 00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:13,520 I'd been looking for them for 25 years. 285 00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:24,680 Burgundy is unique on the planet. 286 00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:31,160 The band of slopes, we say, which is 70 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide, 287 00:18:31,280 --> 00:18:35,360 and composed by 1,250 different appellations. 288 00:18:37,560 --> 00:18:39,880 There are a lot of grapes this year 289 00:18:40,680 --> 00:18:44,000 ...but we won't see how it turns out until the harvest. 290 00:18:46,240 --> 00:18:49,920 Heaven, they say, is above us... 291 00:18:50,800 --> 00:18:52,520 ...but I believe that in Burgundy it is down below. 292 00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:55,200 Down below in the cellar and in the roots of the vines. 293 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:01,520 We are just 11 metres below the ground level here 294 00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:05,760 and we are really with two feet in the history of Burgundy. 295 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:12,760 See here are tiny roots, from vines, which are probably here since 200 years. 296 00:19:13,640 --> 00:19:16,080 The vine is sucking, so to say, the rock. 297 00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:20,040 Going up on the hill on the other side of the street, 298 00:19:20,120 --> 00:19:22,800 the vines will not find the same mineral elements 299 00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:26,400 and they will never find the same taste and aromas. 300 00:19:29,360 --> 00:19:31,920 The most important for me is what nature gives. 301 00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:34,600 We are only a tiny element of the chain. 302 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:41,920 If one element breaks, the chain is broken and you cannot reach the glass of wine. 303 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:47,560 Wine is the expression of place, 304 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,840 and Burgundy is the ultimate example of this. 305 00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:53,960 It's a wine for obsessives. 306 00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:57,600 Someone who really knows their stuff 307 00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:00,800 can tell you the difference, blind, between something that was grown here 308 00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:03,000 and something that was grown 40 feet away. 309 00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:05,720 -It's really good. -Look at where the fill is. 310 00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:07,280 Fucking incredible. 311 00:20:07,360 --> 00:20:09,000 This is probably insane. 312 00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:10,920 This is where I go crazy. 313 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,600 This is my crazy... This is my crazy spot. 314 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:17,520 I get nervous and my blood pressure goes up. 315 00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:22,360 It's the ultimate existential art form. 316 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,240 It's living in a bottle. It's alive. 317 00:20:25,360 --> 00:20:28,120 And then you drink it and you absorb it into your body. 318 00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:30,520 It's art that becomes part of you, literally. 319 00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:34,080 Well, that's Ponsot, who's a great producer. 320 00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:35,720 -Hey, Carl. -Hello! 321 00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:37,400 How you doing, babe? 322 00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:38,760 I'm good. 323 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:40,400 A lot of good shit here. 324 00:20:41,360 --> 00:20:44,080 You have a few drinks and then you come here and spend 100 grand on wine. 325 00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:45,960 This is the place. 326 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:47,400 This is the place, yeah. 327 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:53,360 They're very, very reasonably priced. 328 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:57,040 Where can you get a '61 white for 600 bucks? 329 00:20:57,960 --> 00:20:59,080 From 1961? 330 00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:01,120 This is crazy time. 331 00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:04,640 -Jef? -Yeah. 332 00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:07,200 1990 Romanée-Conti. 333 00:21:07,280 --> 00:21:10,960 This is maybe one of the greatest bottles ever made of wine. 334 00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:12,360 Right here. 335 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:13,880 -20 grand maybe? -20 grand. 336 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:16,280 -He knows his prices. -20 grand for the bottle. 337 00:21:16,360 --> 00:21:17,560 And you want this. 338 00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:21,960 If you like wine, you need this, you want this. 339 00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:24,120 But you have to decide, do you want this or do you want a Prius? 340 00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:26,240 Yes, exactly! Trade it for a Prius. 341 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:29,200 When we drink wine we don't look at the price value, you know. 342 00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:33,440 We look at what we get from the wine. The excitement, you know. 343 00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:36,320 The passion, the way they make the wine and everything. 344 00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:39,120 It's not about the price of the wine, you know. Some people... 345 00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:42,280 Rudy was very generous with everybody. 346 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,640 I had some of the greatest Romanée-Contis with him, you know, 347 00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:47,720 I will ever have. 348 00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:49,960 Put on your best Burgundy face. 349 00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:54,920 Who wants to drink wine? 350 00:21:55,000 --> 00:22:00,520 At the time when all this was happening, there was a huge demand for old fine wine. 351 00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:07,480 As a whole, Burgundy very quickly went from affordable to unobtainable. 352 00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:10,760 I guess you can call it the Rudy era. 353 00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:14,880 It's very fine sediment, so stand them up and then put the ice. 354 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:16,400 The economy was booming back then. 355 00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:17,800 ...standing up, not leaning down. 356 00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:21,960 There was such tiny quantities of Burgundy worldwide. 357 00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:26,840 There wasn't enough to satisfy the thirst. 358 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:30,480 It was all about liquidity and it continues to be. 359 00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:33,240 Any time there's tremendous volatility in a market, 360 00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:35,120 and all asset classes move the same. 361 00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:37,120 Dave, your go-to cellar's pretty good. 362 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:38,680 You've got some good stuff in here. 363 00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:42,120 So many of my friends in finance collect wine 364 00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:46,360 because when you watch stocks all day on Bloomberg, right, 365 00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,200 and then you can see auction prices move, 366 00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:51,400 there's a certain pride to getting a good buy. 367 00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:55,880 Today there is no relation between the prices and what is in the bottle. 368 00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,920 When I sell a bottle at €100, 369 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,920 I see this bottle when it's released at 1,000. 370 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,040 How come? 371 00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:09,400 At $2,600, I ask the bidder against the room. 372 00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:13,120 -Sold at... -Dude, I just opened a bottle on Thursday. 373 00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:15,960 -Yeah? -Now I feel bad about opening it. 374 00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:18,040 It's a 1,000 a bottle. 375 00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,360 Can I refill it and put the cork back? 376 00:23:26,360 --> 00:23:29,000 It was clear to me in very short order 377 00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:32,320 that he had revolutionised the wine market. 378 00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,200 Prices were skyrocketing. 379 00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:37,920 I thought it was a pretty smart little racket. 380 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,520 He was cornering the market in a lot of these wines. 381 00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:43,760 What a clever thing to do. 382 00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:49,320 If you have a lot of money, go in, buy up a lot of wine, 383 00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:53,880 drive up the prices, and then start selling at the new high price. 384 00:23:55,800 --> 00:24:00,960 There was one other guy there who was always bidding furiously against Rudy 385 00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:04,840 and that guy was the representative for Bill Koch. 386 00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:16,160 Collecting has to have an emotional meaning to me. 387 00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:21,400 Part of it is the detective story of tracking it all down. 388 00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:31,840 I've collected impressionistic art, I've collected samurai swords, 389 00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:35,160 silver coins from Greece, have some antiquities, 390 00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,080 have some sculpture. 391 00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:39,480 And I've collected wine. 392 00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:46,520 Do you want to see my wine bathroom? 393 00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:47,880 The bathroom is generally a bathroom, 394 00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:50,400 but I thought I'd be more fun to make it interesting, 395 00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:54,240 so we put wine crates here, wine labels, corks on the ceiling, 396 00:24:54,320 --> 00:25:00,520 and then if you look over there, there are wine bottles on that wall. 397 00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:08,400 My secret wine opener. Wine opener. 398 00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,960 Not wine opener, cellar opener. Come on in. 399 00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:21,920 I've been a little bit obsessive about buying wine in the past. 400 00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:26,440 I have in total 43,000 bottles. 401 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:34,280 With super fine wines you can taste the love the vintner had in making it. 402 00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,960 And that to me is almost a religious experience. 403 00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,240 You know, we collectors like precious things. 404 00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:43,440 Love is extremely precious. 405 00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,800 What price can you put on the love of your wife? 406 00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:50,960 What price... Well, if you're getting a divorce, you can, but... 407 00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:55,440 Here's one bottle of Jefferson wine. 408 00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:59,000 1787 Lafite, Th.J. 409 00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:02,160 I'll set it down on the table. 410 00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:05,920 We'll line them up. 411 00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:13,600 The reason I wanted to buy four bottles of Thomas Jefferson wine is very simple. 412 00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,880 The mere fact that Thomas Jefferson owned it 413 00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:21,680 and held it in his hand, et cetera, et cetera, that's part of history. 414 00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:27,160 Here's another one. 1787 Mouton, again Th.J. 415 00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:29,840 Look at this bottle. 416 00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,880 Isn't it beautiful in and of itself? 417 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:37,040 1737 Lafite, Château Rothschild. 418 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,200 The faker didn't know his wine history very well 419 00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:44,680 because the Rothschilds didn't own Lafite in 1737. 420 00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:51,080 Unfortunately, I paid $100,000 per bottle. 421 00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:52,960 The rogues' gallery. 422 00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:58,720 Well, the first time I think I found a fake wine 423 00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:01,960 it was because of the weight of the bottle. 424 00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,000 There was a bottle of Petrus on the back of the table 425 00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:06,560 and I reached to grab it, 426 00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:10,640 and when I lifted it up I almost threw it on the ceiling 'cause it was so light. 427 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,280 -This has a '75 seal on it. -Yeah. 428 00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:15,720 -But it's a 1929. -Yeah. 429 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:19,480 That only started with the 1930 vintage. 430 00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,200 You're looking for anomalies. 431 00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,440 Is it in the right glass? Does the cork have the right stamp? 432 00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:28,520 Is the cork properly aged? Is the paper correct? 433 00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:30,520 Yeah, everything's pixelated here. 434 00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,880 I wonder what the sediment in here is? 435 00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,520 If these things have allegedly been together for the last 60 years, 436 00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:38,880 they need to look like it. 437 00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:40,760 That is one hot mess. 438 00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:46,560 If the capsule looks like hell, and the label looks pristine, 439 00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:48,000 that doesn't work. 440 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:52,040 You know, that's got a 95-year-old's face on a teenager's body. 441 00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:54,840 You know, you always want to be careful with these online auctions 442 00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,080 because you never know the provenance. 443 00:27:57,160 --> 00:27:59,000 They just want to sell. 444 00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:01,360 Really it's hard. 445 00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:03,280 This bottle's corked, man. 446 00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:05,440 No, I'm just kidding. 447 00:28:07,120 --> 00:28:08,560 I love doing that shit. 448 00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:13,880 At the time fake wine was just starting to be talked about, 449 00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:15,880 Rudy was quite the expert on fake wine 450 00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:20,600 and when I asked him about it, he said that he bought so much fake wine 451 00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:22,880 that he'd had to become an expert on it. 452 00:28:23,360 --> 00:28:25,080 No, they won't tell you if there's something wrong with it, 453 00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,480 but sometimes if they doubt the bottle, they put the picture of it, 454 00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:28,760 -so you be the judge. -Okay. 455 00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,760 Look at the picture, you want it, you take it, you know. 456 00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,280 Is there anybody out there looking at conditions and... 457 00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:38,360 Tell them about Acker auctions. 458 00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:43,200 Acker's great man, we love John. 459 00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:49,040 He and John Kapon were meticulously going through all of his wines 460 00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:51,600 to catalogue everything and sell some off. 461 00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:59,840 John Kapon was the son of a very nice family-run wine store in Manhattan. 462 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,240 Shopping for anything during the holidays can be simply maddening, 463 00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,640 and shopping for wine is no exception. 464 00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,560 I'm here at Acker Merrall and Condit, 465 00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,440 the oldest wine store in America, located in New York City. 466 00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,480 Acker Merrall wasn't a big house, 467 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:17,640 they were a store that got into the auction world 468 00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:19,720 and then Rudy really made them. 469 00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:24,880 John really turned it into a fun thing. 470 00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:28,240 He was the first one to like, break it out. 471 00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,240 It was like a giant crazy party with an auction. 472 00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,920 At the same time he was doing that, Rudy came along, with this incredible cellar 473 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,160 and they kind of helped each other. 474 00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:51,280 When Rudy was drinking California Merlot, 475 00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,640 Acker Merrall & Condit was in last place of all the auction houses. 476 00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:59,840 When Rudy sold $35 million worth of wine through Acker Merrall & Condit 477 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:02,080 in two sales in 2006, 478 00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:05,320 Acker Merrall became the number one auction house in the world. 479 00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,440 He is the CEO of Acker Merrall & Condit. 480 00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,040 This year he has auctioned off more than $100 million, 481 00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:14,360 the first wine house to do so. 482 00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:18,200 John Kapon, joining me, so you can't whine about that revenue, right? 483 00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:19,320 Get it, "whine." 484 00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:20,960 John, you're going to leave now, aren't you? All right. 485 00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:23,400 Well, it's been a pretty crazy year... 486 00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,640 "There's not much that can be said about this collection 487 00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,720 "outside of the fact, it is one of America's greatest. 488 00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,200 "This is a collector that actually inspects his wine." 489 00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:37,280 To see all the magnificent wines in there, 490 00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,240 I said, "Man, this is a wine collector's dream." 491 00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,640 I felt like maybe I ought to buy the whole bloody cellar. 492 00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,000 You know, the auction is a complex transaction. 493 00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:51,400 I mean, you get a catalogue, it's 300 pages long 494 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:52,880 and you have two weeks to make up your mind. 495 00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:54,960 You may win, you may not win. Some people... 496 00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,280 They were selling massive amounts of wine, 497 00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,840 and, you know, I don't know how John could have inspected every single bottle 498 00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,240 when he's selling $30 million worth of wine. 499 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:12,080 The fakers like to fake the very hard to find, 500 00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,520 very old wines 'cause you give them a much higher price. 501 00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:20,480 One night my bulldog investigator, Brad Goldstein, 502 00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:26,520 found that I had just paid 25,000 for one 1921 magnum of Petrus. 503 00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:31,520 In 1921 Petrus made no magnums. 504 00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:33,400 You gotta go, big guy. 505 00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:37,120 You gotta go. You wanna go, you wanna go get Mommy? 506 00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,640 Come on. Come on. Come on. 507 00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:47,520 Bill kept saying to me, "I want to know how deep this problem is in my cellar." 508 00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:49,920 Where are the Ponsots? 509 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:51,400 Where are the Ponsots? I don't see them. 510 00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,400 We had to find experts who knew about corks. 511 00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:58,880 We hired a guy who knew about labels, capsules, glass, 512 00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,800 and even looked at the glue, you know. 513 00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:06,400 On an 1858 bottle we found Elmer's glue. 514 00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:10,040 And Elmer's glue didn't come in until sometime in the '70s. 515 00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,560 Here, see if you can spot the inconsistencies there. 516 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:20,280 You know, the more we learned, the larger the epidemic became. 517 00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:25,120 I have over 400 bottles that are proven fake, 518 00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,440 for which I paid $4 million. 519 00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:31,960 I think what spurred Bill on 520 00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,520 was when the auction houses told him, 521 00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,120 as they say in French, "Tant pis", you know, "Tough luck, buddy. 522 00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:42,320 "You bought it, you bought it as is, you're stuck with it." 523 00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,440 For some reason, you know, Freud can answer why, 524 00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,240 I just hate being cheated. 525 00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:56,080 In the wine business there's a code of silence. 526 00:32:57,600 --> 00:32:59,320 I'm not taking this. 527 00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:06,640 We were fairly certain that some of the wine bottles that Bill had purchased 528 00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,920 from Acker Merrall were, without a doubt, counterfeit. 529 00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:11,960 Let's keep it out of the way. 530 00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:18,520 He tasked me with finding out the information on this Rudy Kurniawan. 531 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,360 I was given video of Rudy in early 2000 532 00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:27,600 doing what was going to be a food show on wine. 533 00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:30,320 I almost fell out of my chair when I first saw these videos. 534 00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,120 Dude, I just opened a bottle on Thursday. 535 00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:37,360 Now I feel bad about opening it. 536 00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:39,920 Can I refill it and put the cork back? 537 00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:46,240 The motivation behind the investigator 538 00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:50,920 is to show the elegance of the hustle. 539 00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:03,200 This is the catalogue of the auction in April 2008 in New York. 540 00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,000 The page to present Domain Ponsot. 541 00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:11,960 And when you see the pictures here, there is a 1929 Clos de la Roche. 542 00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:15,200 Ponsot started estate bottling in 1934. 543 00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:19,760 So, first of all, in the catalogue it was already wrong and fake. 544 00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,320 Everything here also is fake. 545 00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:24,920 This wax we never used. 546 00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,280 We never sold any wine to Nicolas. 547 00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:31,760 We never had this vintage printed outside the label here. 548 00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,880 And Clos Saint-Denis, Clos Saint-Denis, Clos Saint-Denis, 549 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,800 '45, '49, '66, and '71 550 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,520 and we started to produce the Clos Saint-Denis in 1982. So... 551 00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:47,200 And here you have the 99 points from the expert. 552 00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:51,960 And the expert is JK. John Kapon, this is the auctioneer. 553 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:58,240 So, how can the expert be such a good expert on wine 554 00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,320 which costs $50,000 to $70,000? 555 00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,320 Because he earns 20% on it. 556 00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,520 When you find a fake wine, 557 00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:17,600 it's a dirt on the integrity of Burgundy and I wanted to wash it. 558 00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:25,320 So, two days later I jumped into a plane and I flew to New York. 559 00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,840 I wanted John Kapon to withdraw everything. 560 00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,480 The stock market is now down 21%. 561 00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,360 Dow traders are standing there watching in amazement 562 00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:40,840 and I don't blame them. 563 00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,160 This could be the most serious recession in decades 564 00:35:44,240 --> 00:35:46,520 and that means life as most Americans know it, 565 00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:49,920 is about to change, in some cases, dramatically. 566 00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,600 Bear Stearns had collapsed the week before the auction. 567 00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:59,440 So, there was some question about, what was going to happen with the market. 568 00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,880 This particular auction was just a wild affair. 569 00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:09,360 We were all really, really buzzed on really expensive wine. 570 00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:17,320 Things got so raucous, 571 00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,000 halfway through the auction, you know, Kapon is banging his gavel saying, 572 00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:21,280 "Shut the fuck up, guys." 573 00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:25,680 You know, I mean this is not... This is not Sotheby's. 574 00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:32,560 7,000, 7,000, 7,000. 575 00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:33,920 I'm looking for 7,500. 576 00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:38,280 I happened to recognise a guy who came in and sat at the back of the room, 577 00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:40,840 and he was not part of the merriment. 578 00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:43,360 He was sort of like Banquo's ghost. 579 00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:51,560 Suddenly Ponsot stood up, and there was silence. 580 00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:55,920 He said, "Withdraw my wines", and everything... John, like, 581 00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:57,880 was at the podium. 582 00:36:57,960 --> 00:36:59,280 It was a bizarre moment. 583 00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:05,040 Kapon announced the entire 30-odd lots were being withdrawn. 584 00:37:08,720 --> 00:37:10,760 Parcel executed. Do they want two cases? 585 00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:12,960 At the end of the auction I met Kapon 586 00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:16,480 and I was asking who are the owners of these wines. 587 00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,440 The next day I met Rudy Kurniawan for the first time. 588 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:38,520 We go to Jean-Georges. 589 00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:45,920 I had no idea of what would happen. 590 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,200 He was just the owner of the wine, that's it. 591 00:37:51,720 --> 00:37:54,440 My two options was, he didn't know, 592 00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:59,040 or he knew and he wanted to sell it, and this is not nice. 593 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,080 But that's, that's... No matter what... 594 00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:04,520 After "hello" and so on, I said, 595 00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:08,520 "Look, now, you have to tell me where the wines are coming from." 596 00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:12,760 He's not going to have food? 597 00:38:13,720 --> 00:38:15,360 You bought these wines, you should know. 598 00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:18,120 I buy a lot of wines and... 599 00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:22,720 "You know, we buy so many wines, I buy so many wines", said Rudy, 600 00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,880 "that I don't know where they come from, I have to check." 601 00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:28,840 That's why I love wine, you know, wines, you can never tell. 602 00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:29,960 You can never tell. 603 00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:35,080 I had the idea that Rudy was doing a lot of dinners and parties, 604 00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:37,400 trying to have every client as a friend. 605 00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:42,520 So, I said to myself, "I'm going to do the same with him. 606 00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:47,160 "Let him think I will become his best friend and then he will maybe talk." 607 00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,720 We had assembled a team of international talent 608 00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:54,800 who was actually a former CIA agent. 609 00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:58,280 Sorry, guys. 610 00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,800 Percy, you're looking for food, I got nothing for you. 611 00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:04,720 Percy, get outta here. 612 00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:10,880 We had received some information about his immigration status. 613 00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:15,200 This is the 2003 US Department of Justice 614 00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:19,000 removal proceedings for Rudy. 615 00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:24,080 He was living in the United States with a warrant out for his arrest. 616 00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:27,600 Are you going... Have you done any travelling lately? 617 00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:28,720 No. 618 00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:29,840 -To the wine countries? -No. 619 00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:30,960 He did. 620 00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,840 At that point in time, his student visa had run 621 00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,400 and if he leaves the country, he'll never get back in. 622 00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:39,000 You're not a big traveller? You don't like travelling? 623 00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:40,520 I like travelling. I love travelling. 624 00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:42,520 Like putting a sugar addict in a candy store. 625 00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:46,440 No, I love travelling. I love travelling. 626 00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:51,120 One of the letters to Homeland Security 627 00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:53,960 had the name of the business 628 00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:56,840 that Rudy and his brothers used 629 00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,400 to obtain visas to the United States. 630 00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:05,240 We took that letter and went to this location, 631 00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,040 Jalan Gajah Mada plaza. 632 00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:13,080 It's a series of small shops in Jakarta. 633 00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,120 One is like a hardware store. 634 00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:19,920 It's like a hardware store. 635 00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:30,560 I have been insisting on emails and he said, 636 00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:35,040 "Okay, well, I didn't find out yet, but I promise I will give you that." 637 00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:37,840 A month and a half later he gave me a name. 638 00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:45,760 "I found out I bought the wines in Jakarta and it has been sold by a Mr Pak Hendra." 639 00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:49,880 This is the only information he gave me. 640 00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:56,000 I flew to Los Angeles and I invited him to dinner. 641 00:40:57,600 --> 00:40:59,000 Again, very quickly I ask him, 642 00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:04,120 "Now, Rudy, face to face, eyes into eyes, tell me the truth. 643 00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:07,480 "Who is this Mr Pak Hendra?" 644 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:09,640 He's a great guy. 645 00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:11,760 Great... He has a great palate, 646 00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,560 been drinking for the last 20, 30 years. 647 00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:19,760 And he took his cell phone and he wrote two numbers in Jakarta, so I was happy. 648 00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:26,440 Then we had nice dinner. 649 00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,160 Great food, great wine, great people, great ambiance. 650 00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:31,680 Perfect. Can't ask for more. 651 00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:36,600 The next day I tried to call the two numbers. 652 00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:45,760 One was a fax machine and the other had no answer at all. 653 00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:54,360 We had heard Rudy had just met a French vintner 654 00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:59,320 and gave him two phone numbers and the name of an individual 655 00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:00,680 who was his source. 656 00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:05,560 I immediately had our former CIA officer run them. 657 00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:10,680 The first number came back to an airline, Lion Air, 658 00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:13,440 the largest airline of Indonesia. 659 00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:15,720 Not a big wine collector. 660 00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:21,600 And the second number came back to a strip mall, Jalan Gajah Mada, 661 00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:23,360 and I said... 662 00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:27,200 We knocked on every door, 663 00:42:27,720 --> 00:42:32,440 none of the people in the locations had ever heard of 664 00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,760 Rudy Kurniawan or his father. 665 00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:40,280 Everything with this fellow just kept coming up fake. 666 00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,160 Have you heard about this big wine fraud? 667 00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,160 That someone faked wine from these vines? 668 00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:03,480 No. 669 00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,680 Someone counterfeited bottles of Clos de la Roche... 670 00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:10,960 ...and then sold them for $20,000. 671 00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,240 When I came back to Europe from this dinner, 672 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:19,880 it was time to focus on my harvest, and, you know, I'm a winemaker. 673 00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,360 Okay, I don't look like a winemaker, but I am. 674 00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,400 I started to investigate again at the end of the harvest. 675 00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:47,080 Then I decided to go to Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei. 676 00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:53,160 I wanted to know who is Pak Hendra. 677 00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:19,440 And this one is a roll. 678 00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,400 A cheese roll that kind of looks like a spring roll. 679 00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:27,960 On top we will use a fresh rosebud for decoration. 680 00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:33,600 When you serve the sauce, please use the spoon. 681 00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:37,440 You have to put it in the middle of the plate with the meat. 682 00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:39,960 And let the sauce flow nicely. 683 00:44:45,240 --> 00:44:48,640 I go very often to Asia and I know very well Asian people 684 00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:51,440 and I have to tell you that the wealthy people from Jakarta 685 00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,040 are coming to Singapore and Taipei to have fun. 686 00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,920 So, I knew a lot of these people from Jakarta and I would ask, 687 00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,320 "Do you know a Mr Pak Hendra?" 688 00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:05,120 Finally I found out that "Pak" means "Mr" 689 00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:07,320 and "Hendra" is like "Smith." 690 00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:11,520 So, this is the most used name in Indonesia. 691 00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:21,360 So, I would ask, "Do you know a very rich family importing beer 692 00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:25,800 "that would have a son in California that would love wine?" 693 00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:28,000 Nobody knew about a family like that. 694 00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,920 So, who is Rudy? 695 00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:36,960 No, not at all, he bought them at a high price. 696 00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:41,320 But he often sells them for a lower price, the idiot. 697 00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:43,280 He's a good friend then? 698 00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,880 I love him! 699 00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,400 He didn't talk so much about his wealth, 700 00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:52,560 but he didn't have to because it was obvious. 701 00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,720 I chose this wine tonight because I have a lot of it. 702 00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:58,040 I wanted to taste it again. 703 00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:02,080 I met his mother, who is a wonderful lady, and I met his brother. 704 00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,600 And your brother, you know, in the last two months he's been here 705 00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:06,800 eight, 10 times alone. 706 00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:08,320 He doesn't want to go back. 707 00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:10,960 He was very business-like, very nice. 708 00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,800 But Rudy was very outgoing and just the opposite. 709 00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:16,880 I've got to cut down a little bit 710 00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:18,600 on drinking and eating like this every week. 711 00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:25,040 I spent three Christmases, Christmas Eves with he and his mother. 712 00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,080 She was very old, she did not speak English 713 00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:31,920 and he was clearly taking care of her. 714 00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:33,840 -We always exchange. -We always exchange. 715 00:46:35,240 --> 00:46:40,040 Dar seemed very much like the big brother who was running the business back in Asia 716 00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:42,080 and giving Rudy an allowance. 717 00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:44,960 From my point of view, 718 00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,760 he looked up to his brother and his brother could say, 719 00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:53,680 "Hey, if you screw up, then I can cut you off." 720 00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:55,600 That's the perception I got. 721 00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:59,320 Dar didn't strike me as a criminal. 722 00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:01,840 What's your favourite Al Pacino movie? 723 00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:04,920 Scarface! 724 00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:15,680 My name is James Wynne. I was an FBI agent for 30 years, 725 00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:19,200 26 of which were spent investigating cases 726 00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:22,320 involving the theft of art or art fraud. 727 00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:26,040 I've read the Idiot's Book on French Wine. 728 00:47:27,240 --> 00:47:28,960 That's how I started. 729 00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:32,440 My background is financial 730 00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,560 and this in a lot of ways is a financial crimes investigation. 731 00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:42,440 One person described Rudy as having a never-ending reservoir of needs. 732 00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:47,840 He ran like $16 million through his American Express account. 733 00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:53,360 Rudy had a number of very nice cars. An Italian sports car, a Mercedes, SUV. 734 00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:56,920 He had purchased a mansion in Bel-Air, California. 735 00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:02,920 He was buying contemporary art, he had a Damien Hirst, he had some Warhol. 736 00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:07,200 All of these trappings go into creating Rudy. 737 00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:09,800 He was like the Gen X Great Gatsby. 738 00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:13,440 You put me in big trouble, man, I'm on diet. 739 00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:17,720 The persona established by Rudy was that he was a trust-fund baby, 740 00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:21,160 very wealthy, sent to the US to care for his mother. 741 00:48:21,240 --> 00:48:24,640 Was earning an allowance from his brother who was running the family companies. 742 00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:31,080 I was unable to establish any of that as being true. 743 00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:34,880 Based on my review of years of bank records, 744 00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,920 I see no evidence whatsoever, that he was receiving trust-fund proceeds 745 00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:40,040 from his brother. 746 00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:41,760 I always said that, we always said that. 747 00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:44,320 The right wine, the right food. 748 00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:46,040 Let's toast, let's toast. 749 00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:54,360 What emerged for me was how desperate Rudy was for money. 750 00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:57,840 He's putting people off, putting people off. 751 00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:00,240 He has a deadline, he's supposed to pay someone 752 00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:06,880 and he's procrastinating because he doesn't have the money. 753 00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:10,560 It's almost like a shell game, 754 00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,120 he's borrowing money from here to pay over there. 755 00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:17,640 All the activity involves wine transactions 756 00:49:17,720 --> 00:49:20,600 and/or loans and advances he was receiving 757 00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,080 from clients of one of the auction companies. 758 00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:25,520 Do you see wine as a good investment? 759 00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:27,080 It's a great investment, 760 00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:29,200 I mean, historically it's been one of the best investments, 761 00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:31,680 on par with gold and... 762 00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:37,360 Acker, like a lot of auction companies, offer advances in anticipation of sales. 763 00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,520 The beautiful thing about wine is that people actually drink it, 764 00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:43,880 so there's less bottles every day or every week 765 00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:45,320 of some of the world's greatest wines. 766 00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:49,520 So, it naturally, kind of, puts pressure on pricing automatically. 767 00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,200 This was a way to beat out other auction companies 768 00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:54,400 that might be competing for Rudy's business. 769 00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,480 At one point, you know, Rudy was obligated to Acker 770 00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:01,040 for almost $10 million. 771 00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:03,240 Sir, raise your right hand, please. 772 00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:04,800 Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth 773 00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,280 and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 774 00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:08,400 -I do. -I do. 775 00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:09,720 Thank you. 776 00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:11,920 Can you please state your name for the record? 777 00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:13,520 Rudy Kurniawan. 778 00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:17,120 Let me cover some ground rules just so that you know. 779 00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:19,480 -Have you been deposed before? -No. 780 00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:21,720 So, it's important that you speak audibly. 781 00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:23,280 Okay, sorry about that. 782 00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:25,640 Because the court reporter's trying to write down what you're saying, 783 00:50:25,720 --> 00:50:28,800 so he can't write down nods of the head, he needs words. 784 00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:30,440 -Do you understand that? -Yes. 785 00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:41,680 Mr Kurniawan, who inspected these bottles? 786 00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:44,320 Well, we basically have... 787 00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:48,840 We basically drank a lot of these bottles with a lot of different people, 788 00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:52,040 including critics, experts, 789 00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:54,800 auction houses and whatnot. 790 00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,240 We tried to press Rudy for the source of his wine. 791 00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:02,720 We were looking to build our case and file against him. 792 00:51:03,240 --> 00:51:07,440 John doesn't want to take it, it could be fake, it could be counterfeit, 793 00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:10,560 but he's not sure, I'm not sure. 794 00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:12,040 I don't believe so. 795 00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:15,960 So, I agreed to take them back, which is the right thing to do. 796 00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:21,600 He wasn't defensive, he was guarded but, you know, friendly. 797 00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:24,520 He's a "hail fellow, well met" kind of fellow. 798 00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:26,520 -Do you speak French? -No. 799 00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:29,120 -Do you write French? -No. 800 00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:30,640 Just merci. 801 00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:37,400 Never definitive, nothing concrete. 802 00:51:38,240 --> 00:51:41,760 You know what, that guy, told me nothing. 803 00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:47,600 He owes everybody money, and John Kapon is no longer, 804 00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,200 at least publicly, selling his wine. 805 00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,360 And that's when I started to see, you know, 806 00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:57,960 lists fly across the country from different brokers and whatnot 807 00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:01,160 because Rudy was trying to find other ways to sell, and he did. 808 00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:09,240 This is another fake one. 809 00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:17,480 After the Ponsot auction in 2008 810 00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,600 nobody wanted to deal with Rudy's wines, everybody knew there was a problem. 811 00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:27,200 But in 2009, Christie's, of all people, 812 00:52:27,280 --> 00:52:32,040 sold wine for Rudy in a series of auctions for him under his own name. 813 00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:38,400 You know the auction houses had gone from having high reputations 814 00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:42,680 to having apparently sold tens of millions of dollars' worth of counterfeit wines. 815 00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:48,000 In 2012, on top of all this, 816 00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:50,960 I got a hold of a Spectrum and Vanquish catalogue. 817 00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,880 They had brand-new labels, they had the pink wax. 818 00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:57,240 We all looked at them and all said, 819 00:52:57,320 --> 00:52:59,080 "Yeah, absolutely, this is Rudy's wine." 820 00:53:01,240 --> 00:53:05,080 Spectrum wouldn't withdraw them and they wouldn't disclose that it was from Rudy. 821 00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,840 At that point, I went and published a warning. 822 00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:13,400 Boy, did this go viral. 823 00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,120 There were a number of different labelling issues 824 00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:20,280 that were basically called to our attention. 825 00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:24,360 One of them involved a strip label for an importer, Percy Fox, 826 00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:27,040 that had a misspelling of his address. 827 00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:29,200 Sackvilee street with two "E"'s 828 00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:31,960 and it should have been with an "L" and an "E". 829 00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:41,760 FBI agents came here and were talking pretty seriously. 830 00:53:45,240 --> 00:53:48,480 I could tell by their line of questioning that they were zeroing in on him, 831 00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:50,440 they were serious about it. 832 00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:53,360 I said, "You're barking up the wrong tree." 833 00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:57,440 Rudy could never do what you think he has done 834 00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:00,640 because he just doesn't have the capacity to do it. 835 00:54:03,720 --> 00:54:07,120 And after they left, I went to the phone and I called him. 836 00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:09,960 As a friend, I thought I should warn him. 837 00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:11,440 I remember his very words. 838 00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:15,440 I said, "The FBI were just here, Rudy, and I think they're really seriously... 839 00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:16,920 "I can tell, 840 00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:19,440 "the last time they came, they were just asking. 841 00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:23,080 "This time, there's something serious going on, 842 00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:24,920 "and I just want to let you know." 843 00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:28,000 And he said, "Don't worry, dude, I have everything under control." 844 00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:29,120 Those were his very words. 845 00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:32,400 "Don't worry, dude, I have everything under control." 846 00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:39,920 I don't think there was any reason to think he knew we were coming. 847 00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:44,760 We meet on the morning of the eighth, somewhere around 5:00. 848 00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,720 The plan was to approach the house, set up a perimeter, 849 00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:51,280 knock and announce and place him under arrest. 850 00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:53,680 We pulled up, 851 00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,520 agents went to their designated positions, 852 00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:59,240 and they proceeded to knock and announce, 853 00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:02,040 and knock and announce, and knock and announce, 854 00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:03,480 and yell, and yell, 855 00:55:05,520 --> 00:55:07,240 and there was no answer. 856 00:55:10,240 --> 00:55:12,880 The team leader said, "Get the ram", 857 00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:16,160 and I thought, "Oh, no, this is going to be a long day". 858 00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:20,160 And then the door opened, 859 00:55:20,240 --> 00:55:21,920 and it was Rudy, 860 00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:25,720 and he looked like he had just gotten out of bed. 861 00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:38,240 When you walked in the house, 862 00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:40,320 the first thing you saw was wine everywhere 863 00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:42,840 in the living room in a huge wine refrigerator. 864 00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:45,720 I was stunned, 865 00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:47,600 I mean, I could've been knocked over with a feather 866 00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:48,960 when I saw what was in the kitchen. 867 00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:57,640 In the kitchen sink there were two or three bottles soaking. 868 00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:00,440 The labels were being soaked off the bottles. 869 00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:03,520 There were two or three bottles sitting next to the kitchen sink, 870 00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:05,000 waiting to be labelled. 871 00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:09,160 There was a cork extraction device, there was a re-corking device. 872 00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:11,480 There was in effect a mixing station 873 00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:14,120 of somewhere around 20 bottles sitting in the kitchen, 874 00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:16,480 all sorts of California wines. 875 00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:18,400 And there were notations. 876 00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:21,920 Change the year, the vintage, change the size. 877 00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:24,040 Remove a serial number. 878 00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:26,360 We found bottles that were unlabelled 879 00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:29,240 that had handwritten notations, like formulas. 880 00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:34,040 There were labels and labels and labels, 881 00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:37,560 thousands of labels, banded like US currency. 882 00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:42,400 The thermostat was set at like 63 degrees, 883 00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:43,760 and in this million-dollar house, 884 00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,680 they use space heaters in the two bedrooms where they slept. 885 00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,240 In a store room there were racks and racks of wine, 886 00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:52,720 and on the treadmill there were 18 waiting to be labelled. 887 00:56:53,000 --> 00:56:56,120 There was a stencil, there were old wooden crates throughout the house, 888 00:56:56,280 --> 00:56:59,720 there were boxes with real labels, like a library. 889 00:57:00,240 --> 00:57:03,760 There was everything you'd ever need to make fake wine. 890 00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:07,600 As an FBI agent, if I had listed the 10 things 891 00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:09,840 that I would like to have obtained from a search, 892 00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:14,240 this was 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 to infinity. 893 00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:23,120 I don't know what all that stuff was doing there. 894 00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:24,880 It's very odd, right? 895 00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:29,920 I can't picture... They didn't find printing presses, 896 00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:31,800 they didn't find... They just found stuff. 897 00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:36,000 They found no stuff to make wax caps, nothing that... 898 00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,680 no means of production, just stuff. 899 00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:40,800 So, what's that stuff doing there? 900 00:57:42,680 --> 00:57:44,520 Is he looking at it, is he giving it to someone? 901 00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:47,360 Is someone giving it to him to look at? I don't know. 902 00:57:49,040 --> 00:57:51,040 I could not believe. 903 00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:52,800 I couldn't believe it. 904 00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:56,200 That can't be Rudy. 905 00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:03,880 Being a very close friend of his, I got calls. 906 00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:07,000 And then I saw the pictures. 907 00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:12,360 He was the last... 908 00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:15,280 He is the last person I would ever suspect 909 00:58:15,360 --> 00:58:19,360 of being able to do any kind of intensive arts and crafts. 910 00:58:19,520 --> 00:58:21,720 -I left you a message, just so you know. -No, I didn't get it. 911 00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:24,680 -The number that I have for you, I called. -It's still there, but I changed... 912 00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:26,240 I just changed to a new phone you see. 913 00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:28,320 He is ADD. 914 00:58:29,200 --> 00:58:31,400 He doesn't have the attention span. 915 00:58:31,720 --> 00:58:33,800 Life is good, life is good. 916 00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:35,720 Life is good, man. 917 00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:39,000 It's a time-consuming, laborious thing to do and he could... 918 00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:40,640 He could never do that. 919 00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:44,200 I just could not see him doing it, and still don't see him doing it, 920 00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:46,440 and I still don't believe he did it. 921 00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:48,200 No way. 922 00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:07,200 I think part of what he started doing was... 923 00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:12,120 Doing some reconditioning. 924 00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:21,520 If you want to take everything they're saying as true 925 00:59:21,640 --> 00:59:23,720 for the purposes of argument, and again I'm not stipulating that, 926 00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:26,600 but if you want to take everything they're saying as true, 927 00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:30,280 we're talking about wine here. 928 00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:34,920 -Oh, my God. -'91 Ridge Monte Bello. 929 00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:36,080 Don't you want it? 930 00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:39,520 Here's a wine over here, something that people have tasted, 931 00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:42,000 that they're saying is the best ever. 932 00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:46,600 Well, if you can make something taste like that, 933 00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:49,560 why not recreate that experience? 934 00:59:50,520 --> 00:59:53,680 And I think that's what happened. 935 00:59:55,200 --> 00:59:58,960 They tried to make that sound like it was alchemy. 936 00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:02,200 You know, like he was mixing and matching and contriving. 937 01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:05,120 But that's not what I think it was at all. 938 01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:07,360 I think Rudy just really digs wine. 939 01:00:08,400 --> 01:00:10,600 -This is... -Where is Rudy? 940 01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:14,680 We're all insecure. 941 01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:18,600 My God, that's it, man. 942 01:00:18,680 --> 01:00:23,160 And if we're the new kid in the group, we're really insecure. 943 01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:26,400 And especially if everybody else in the group is older, 944 01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:29,200 if everybody else in the group is richer, 945 01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,400 you want to live up to whatever the expectations are. 946 01:00:33,560 --> 01:00:35,680 The only government evidence 947 01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:38,800 was relating to something that would have been a couple of bottles 948 01:00:38,880 --> 01:00:44,160 at a time perhaps being made in the kitchen sink in Rudy's house in Arcadia. 949 01:00:46,440 --> 01:00:50,080 I don't think that you could have created the number of bottles they claim 950 01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:54,120 that were counterfeit doing that, so they have a problem with that. 951 01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:01,720 This bottle, 952 01:01:02,440 --> 01:01:05,520 1985 Côte Rôtie La Mouline, 953 01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:07,760 is from the famous... 954 01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:11,040 The famous crazy wine auction. 955 01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:14,600 The Cellar auction where all the shit happened, Rudy's auction. 956 01:01:14,680 --> 01:01:17,000 The cellar was Rudy's cellar 957 01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:19,600 and you will see this is very real. 958 01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:24,160 So, this is an example of 90% of Rudy's wine that he sold that is real. 959 01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:28,120 It's fantastic as everyone's going to see. 960 01:01:28,360 --> 01:01:29,760 Yeah, this one is real. 961 01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:33,360 So, he did sell mostly real wine, I think. 962 01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:36,600 He had an incredible palate and he was also very generous. 963 01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:38,360 Oh, my God, this is so good. 964 01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:39,720 It's rare and perfect. 965 01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:41,240 Do you want to use a fork 'cause it's on camera? 966 01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:43,920 -No, I'm just going to do with my hands. -Yeah, go for it. 967 01:01:45,640 --> 01:01:47,280 -Let's do it. -Here we go. 968 01:01:47,360 --> 01:01:48,520 Thank you very much. 969 01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:49,840 Hi, Matthew! 970 01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:51,520 -How are you, babe? -Everything's good. 971 01:01:51,600 --> 01:01:53,520 -How are those wines? -Fucking awesome! 972 01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:55,520 Were you just walking down the street drinking wine? 973 01:01:55,600 --> 01:01:57,880 -No, we took a car here. -Okay. 974 01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:00,920 We are not able to drive right now, so we had a driver. 975 01:02:01,280 --> 01:02:05,400 This is one of the wines that Rudy sold. 976 01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:08,240 Try this, please. 977 01:02:17,400 --> 01:02:19,040 It's outstanding. 978 01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:22,760 -It's as good as it gets. -It does taste really good. 979 01:02:22,840 --> 01:02:24,880 Thank you so much. Christian. 980 01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:28,680 So, this is a bottle that Levy bought from Rudy. 981 01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:30,600 It's real. 982 01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:33,440 -He bought it from... -How long has this been open? 983 01:02:33,520 --> 01:02:35,120 About two hours. 984 01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:43,560 -It's garbage. -You don't like it? 985 01:02:43,640 --> 01:02:45,320 You think it's fake? Really? 986 01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:47,920 I know this wine very well. It's not even close. 987 01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:50,200 It doesn't have the life, 988 01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:55,400 it doesn't have the verve and the vivacity and the dimension of a La Mouline '85, 989 01:02:55,480 --> 01:02:59,000 which is almost like, if you had a really rich 990 01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:02,040 BLT with the egg on top. 991 01:03:02,120 --> 01:03:04,240 That's how that wine tastes almost. 992 01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:05,440 This? 993 01:03:05,680 --> 01:03:08,280 I mean, it tastes like, you know, skunk juice. 994 01:03:09,680 --> 01:03:11,720 So, that's very interesting. 995 01:03:11,800 --> 01:03:13,880 How much of the Rudy wine do you have? 996 01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:15,400 I don't know. 997 01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:17,000 Six bottles or something. 998 01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:19,280 He has 6,000 bottles. 999 01:03:21,960 --> 01:03:25,800 There is a kind of collaboration between the forger and the dupe. 1000 01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:27,800 People kind of want to be fooled. 1001 01:03:27,880 --> 01:03:30,640 They really want to own this very rare bottle of wine 1002 01:03:30,720 --> 01:03:34,440 that maybe doesn't even exist any more 1003 01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:38,280 and so, you don't really want to know that it's a fake. 1004 01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:46,720 If you believe that Rudy Kurniawan 1005 01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:50,400 was just trying to recondition the bottles and give them nicer appearance, 1006 01:03:50,480 --> 01:03:52,800 then you probably believe that in a few weeks 1007 01:03:52,880 --> 01:03:55,400 a man with a white beard is going to come down your chimney 1008 01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:59,160 and leave a case of 1945 Romanée-Conti under your tree. 1009 01:04:02,160 --> 01:04:03,920 I became interested in this investigation 1010 01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:07,760 when I met Jim Wynne, the FBI agent assigned to it. 1011 01:04:08,920 --> 01:04:13,920 I sensed right away that there was going to be an actual charge that could be made. 1012 01:04:16,200 --> 01:04:18,600 We certainly had overwhelming evidence. 1013 01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:25,240 A connoisseur of counterfeiting, master of label making, cork stamping... 1014 01:04:26,080 --> 01:04:29,120 He had been purchasing things like extremely large quantities, 1015 01:04:29,200 --> 01:04:31,360 thousands of dollars, of wax. 1016 01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:39,800 He was ordering paper that was known for its antique properties 1017 01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:42,480 that can be used to make labels. 1018 01:04:44,240 --> 01:04:48,360 He was collecting dozens and dozens of empty bottles from restaurants. 1019 01:04:52,560 --> 01:04:55,160 I always keep my empty bottles. You know that. 1020 01:04:55,240 --> 01:04:56,920 And people ask me why. 1021 01:04:57,000 --> 01:04:59,600 I actually put the date and the place that I had where, 1022 01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:02,000 you know, and who I had with. 1023 01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:04,200 Kind of simple notes at the back of the bottle. 1024 01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:08,240 Rudy's explanation was that he was creating a museum of some kind, 1025 01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:10,280 or he was doing a photo shoot of some kind. 1026 01:05:18,840 --> 01:05:20,760 He was scanning labels into his computer 1027 01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:24,240 and then he was printing them on a huge printer that was in the house. 1028 01:05:27,560 --> 01:05:30,320 What I'm doing is forensically looking at the wines. 1029 01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:36,680 After having scanned through and catalogued 1030 01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:38,680 all the evidence from Rudy's computers, 1031 01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:41,800 what I can say is this is definitely Rudy's 1032 01:05:41,880 --> 01:05:43,920 because here's the template that made it. 1033 01:05:53,640 --> 01:05:58,040 There are notebooks upon notebooks in evidence of Rudy's tasting notes. 1034 01:06:03,360 --> 01:06:07,440 One of the really interesting pieces of evidence I thought was a half-bottle 1035 01:06:07,520 --> 01:06:09,880 that had writing on it 1036 01:06:09,960 --> 01:06:13,480 and he had M-45 and he had a formula. 1037 01:06:14,120 --> 01:06:16,200 So, that was 1945 Mouton, 1038 01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:20,080 and he had his first formula that he had blended and he didn't like that. 1039 01:06:20,240 --> 01:06:22,360 He had that scribbled out and then on the other side 1040 01:06:22,440 --> 01:06:25,680 he had another formula for M-45 that he liked better. 1041 01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:31,440 So, I think that it was a lot of trial and error and it was a lot of blending. 1042 01:06:32,040 --> 01:06:34,600 He would take these old wines that he had tasted once. 1043 01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:37,680 He found other wines that had similar characteristics 1044 01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:39,880 and he'd just mad scientist it. 1045 01:06:41,640 --> 01:06:43,480 What he would make was generally 1046 01:06:43,560 --> 01:06:48,000 a very convincing imitation of what it said on the label. 1047 01:06:49,240 --> 01:06:52,360 It's easy to dismiss all this and say, "These guys are sniffing and swirling, 1048 01:06:52,440 --> 01:06:55,280 "and it's all a crock of shit and you could, you could fool..." 1049 01:06:55,440 --> 01:06:59,120 Well, the fact is most of these guys you couldn't fool them most of the time. 1050 01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:02,920 That's what's interesting about Rudy's fraud 1051 01:07:03,120 --> 01:07:05,320 is that hardly anybody could have done it. 1052 01:07:07,480 --> 01:07:09,520 He was a bit of an artist. 1053 01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:27,800 Here this one which is dirty on the side and not in the middle. 1054 01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:30,920 It was well done, actually, 1055 01:07:31,000 --> 01:07:34,680 but too much well done because there is nearly 1056 01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:37,200 a line between the dirt and the non-dirt. 1057 01:07:43,880 --> 01:07:45,720 My theory is easy. 1058 01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:48,160 To fake one bottle you need one hour, 1059 01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:50,480 if you have the labels the wax and everything. 1060 01:07:50,560 --> 01:07:54,640 Just to eliminate the original label, the capsule, 1061 01:07:54,840 --> 01:07:58,680 and then clean it, put the new label on it, 1062 01:07:59,040 --> 01:08:02,560 dirt it again, put the wax and everything. It takes one hour. 1063 01:08:02,920 --> 01:08:05,120 When you know that one of the big sales 1064 01:08:05,200 --> 01:08:07,640 was 15,000 bottles, or something like that, 1065 01:08:07,720 --> 01:08:11,880 if you multiply the number of bottles by one hour, 1066 01:08:11,960 --> 01:08:16,080 15,000 hours, so it's impossible. 1067 01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:18,480 I mean, technically, it's impossible that he could do it... 1068 01:08:18,560 --> 01:08:21,120 He could have done it on his own. 1069 01:08:22,960 --> 01:08:25,960 We know that some of the paper came from Indonesia. 1070 01:08:26,040 --> 01:08:27,440 His brothers were in Indonesia. 1071 01:08:27,520 --> 01:08:31,520 We knew that there was money going to his brothers in Indonesia. 1072 01:08:33,200 --> 01:08:38,240 It was pretty evident to us that this was kind of a family affair. 1073 01:08:38,480 --> 01:08:40,480 -Are you independently wealthy? -What? 1074 01:08:40,560 --> 01:08:41,920 Are you independently wealthy? 1075 01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:43,680 No, I'm broke, man. 1076 01:08:43,800 --> 01:08:45,280 No, I'm trying... 1077 01:08:45,360 --> 01:08:49,000 I scam people and drink their wines. 1078 01:08:49,080 --> 01:08:52,520 When we spoke to witnesses and when we conduct our investigation, 1079 01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:54,480 one thing that was pretty consistent was 1080 01:08:54,560 --> 01:08:57,400 that no one really knew the source of his purported wealth 1081 01:08:57,480 --> 01:09:00,320 and no one actually knew his background. 1082 01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:03,840 His legally registered name is Rudy Kurniawan, 1083 01:09:03,920 --> 01:09:06,160 but he has operated under different names. 1084 01:09:06,240 --> 01:09:09,160 He operated under the name Lenywati Tan, or Lenny Tan, 1085 01:09:09,520 --> 01:09:11,720 which is actually his mother's name. 1086 01:09:12,480 --> 01:09:15,480 To answer your question, I come from... 1087 01:09:17,040 --> 01:09:19,400 I come from a wealthy family, a good family. 1088 01:09:19,480 --> 01:09:20,960 No, that's not what I asked. 1089 01:09:21,040 --> 01:09:25,480 The names for Rudy Kurniawan and his brother Dar Saputra, 1090 01:09:25,560 --> 01:09:29,120 those are both the names of famous Indonesian badminton players. 1091 01:09:39,400 --> 01:09:43,360 His father gave him that name because it is an Indonesian name. 1092 01:09:45,880 --> 01:09:48,960 Rudy was of Chinese descent 1093 01:09:49,040 --> 01:09:52,840 and there was a period of time when there was a huge amount of even danger 1094 01:09:52,920 --> 01:09:56,520 to people of Chinese descent that were living in Indonesia. 1095 01:10:01,440 --> 01:10:02,920 The family was reasonably well to do 1096 01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:05,160 and involved in a number of business interests 1097 01:10:05,240 --> 01:10:07,000 and they've been successful. 1098 01:10:10,440 --> 01:10:15,720 They're fairly reserved in terms of talking much about the family. 1099 01:10:17,360 --> 01:10:20,240 I come from a wealthy family, a good family. 1100 01:10:20,320 --> 01:10:23,520 This guy, he's recreating himself. 1101 01:10:26,760 --> 01:10:29,760 It's like he was in the witness protection programme. 1102 01:10:31,160 --> 01:10:34,960 It's probably going to take him a while to really taste the wine, 1103 01:10:35,120 --> 01:10:36,800 you know what I mean? 1104 01:10:37,360 --> 01:10:40,760 In Indonesia, everybody is given an identity card 1105 01:10:40,840 --> 01:10:43,280 and we were able to pull his passports, 1106 01:10:43,360 --> 01:10:48,640 and we knew that his father's name was Makmur Widjojo 1107 01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:52,640 and that his mother was Lenywati Tan 1108 01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:56,520 and then we knew he had a brother Dar and he had a brother Teddy. 1109 01:10:57,920 --> 01:11:01,840 Then we were able to find their Facebook pages. 1110 01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:05,480 They weren't hiding their conspicuous consumption. 1111 01:11:18,920 --> 01:11:20,440 Who backed him? 1112 01:11:20,840 --> 01:11:23,080 Where did his money come from? 1113 01:11:25,240 --> 01:11:26,840 Who created him? 1114 01:11:27,560 --> 01:11:29,360 Well, you should introduce the menu. 1115 01:11:29,440 --> 01:11:33,120 We started receiving information through sources 1116 01:11:33,200 --> 01:11:36,440 in the banking community and in the business community in Jakarta 1117 01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:41,480 that there was a link between Lenywati Tan's brothers 1118 01:11:41,560 --> 01:11:46,040 being involved in the largest bank heist 1119 01:11:46,280 --> 01:11:48,240 in the history of Jakarta. 1120 01:11:48,320 --> 01:11:53,360 The Supreme Court hasn't been able to extradite the bank robber Eddy Tansil. 1121 01:11:53,600 --> 01:11:57,280 But there have been sightings of Eddy in China. 1122 01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:03,520 One of them is Eddy Tansil, who's still a fugitive in China. 1123 01:12:05,280 --> 01:12:10,440 Eddy broke out of prison and escaped after stealing all the proceeds of a bank. 1124 01:12:10,960 --> 01:12:13,320 The fugitive misappropriated $565 million 1125 01:12:13,400 --> 01:12:17,000 that he obtained through credits from Bapindo bank. 1126 01:12:21,760 --> 01:12:25,400 And the other brother, Hendra Rahardja, had a bank, 1127 01:12:25,480 --> 01:12:30,720 Harapan Santosa, and he walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars. 1128 01:12:30,800 --> 01:12:33,760 He just stole it and then fled to Australia. 1129 01:12:34,560 --> 01:12:38,560 Hendra Rahardja is accused of Indonesia's biggest corporate fraud, 1130 01:12:38,640 --> 01:12:41,440 defrauding $670 million. 1131 01:12:44,800 --> 01:12:49,440 This is really painful you know for us, for all the clients of the banks. 1132 01:12:49,520 --> 01:12:52,120 I saved my money for about 30 years. 1133 01:12:54,840 --> 01:12:57,920 One of the properties that Hendra Rahardja 1134 01:12:58,000 --> 01:13:02,200 claimed to own was Jalan Gajah Mada. 1135 01:13:04,200 --> 01:13:06,240 And I was like, 1136 01:13:07,360 --> 01:13:11,320 "The coincidence, is just, you know", 1137 01:13:11,640 --> 01:13:13,480 I don't believe in coincidences. 1138 01:13:14,440 --> 01:13:17,600 Our governments and the people of Indonesia 1139 01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:21,040 call on all Rahardja's family members 1140 01:13:21,120 --> 01:13:25,920 and associates to come clean and surrender themselves 1141 01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:29,560 to account for their grotesque crimes. 1142 01:13:30,520 --> 01:13:33,160 Do you have any indication as to where the money might be? 1143 01:13:33,240 --> 01:13:35,960 Is it in bank accounts or is it in property or... 1144 01:13:36,040 --> 01:13:38,680 Well, I don't want to signal our shots in that regard, 1145 01:13:38,760 --> 01:13:40,920 but we do believe that there are assets overseas. 1146 01:13:50,800 --> 01:13:54,200 I'm going to meet somebody at 12:30 in Westwood, so, I could... 1147 01:13:54,280 --> 01:13:57,960 I don't know if Rudy was benefitting from Eddy Tansil 1148 01:13:58,040 --> 01:14:00,560 and his mother's family's thievery. 1149 01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:05,320 Maybe that's why the backstory was created 1150 01:14:05,400 --> 01:14:07,280 when he came to the United States. 1151 01:14:10,400 --> 01:14:14,560 Once this guy was a rock star in the world of rare expensive wine 1152 01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:18,760 and now Rudy Kurniawan is on trial for fraud here in New York 1153 01:14:19,440 --> 01:14:23,680 accused of making millions selling counterfeit wines to unsuspecting... 1154 01:14:23,760 --> 01:14:26,600 I don't want to be away from the trial. 1155 01:14:28,840 --> 01:14:32,120 When Rudy will be in front of me, eyes into eyes, 1156 01:14:32,200 --> 01:14:36,240 I want to let him know that I know what he has done 1157 01:14:37,280 --> 01:14:40,800 and it's not a satisfaction that someone goes to jail. 1158 01:14:41,080 --> 01:14:43,720 But this is so important for Burgundy. 1159 01:14:45,480 --> 01:14:49,040 If Rudy, at the end of the trial, is free, 1160 01:14:49,560 --> 01:14:52,360 I can't believe in anything any more in life. 1161 01:14:52,440 --> 01:14:54,320 Maybe I will become a monk. 1162 01:14:58,320 --> 01:15:01,040 I'm worried, I don't know what will happen. 1163 01:15:01,640 --> 01:15:03,400 I am in America, I'm French 1164 01:15:03,480 --> 01:15:06,040 and I have to make my testimony in English. 1165 01:15:07,320 --> 01:15:09,320 It makes me a little nervous. 1166 01:15:16,760 --> 01:15:18,840 "He turned his home into a wine factory", 1167 01:15:18,920 --> 01:15:21,880 said prosecutor Joseph Facciponti of the defendant 1168 01:15:21,960 --> 01:15:24,720 and created what he called his "magic cellar". 1169 01:15:26,480 --> 01:15:28,880 He decided to plead not guilty. 1170 01:15:30,880 --> 01:15:34,360 Sometimes, certainly in the area of financial fraud, 1171 01:15:34,440 --> 01:15:39,560 there are defendants who basically don't want to accept reality. 1172 01:15:39,640 --> 01:15:41,720 They choose not to acknowledge it. 1173 01:15:44,720 --> 01:15:48,400 When I got into the room I found him a little slimmer. 1174 01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:51,880 He lost weight in prison probably. 1175 01:15:53,600 --> 01:15:58,360 It's never something you can like when you see someone on the ground. 1176 01:16:01,640 --> 01:16:04,240 The Sherlock Holmes of French wine. 1177 01:16:04,320 --> 01:16:07,600 Laurent Ponsot's crusade to sniff out the fraudster 1178 01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:09,880 who was faking his vintage wines 1179 01:16:09,960 --> 01:16:12,480 began about five years ago and ended here 1180 01:16:12,560 --> 01:16:15,800 at Manhattan's federal district court this week. 1181 01:16:22,640 --> 01:16:25,680 At a certain point of my testimony, 1182 01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:29,720 our eyes, for once, get in touch, 1183 01:16:29,800 --> 01:16:33,520 and he smiled to me and he made me a little sign 1184 01:16:33,600 --> 01:16:36,080 with his head and smiled to me. 1185 01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:43,280 I found it bizarre, but in the meantime nice. 1186 01:16:48,360 --> 01:16:50,800 The first person ever to be convicted 1187 01:16:50,880 --> 01:16:53,120 for selling fake wine in the US 1188 01:16:53,200 --> 01:16:56,800 will spend the next 10 years bottled up in a jail cell. 1189 01:16:57,520 --> 01:17:03,480 Fraudster Rudy Kurniawan will also pay $28.4 million back to victims. 1190 01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:12,120 Hi, what's your reaction to the trial today? 1191 01:17:12,360 --> 01:17:14,720 Very surprised, stunned, I think. 1192 01:17:14,800 --> 01:17:18,320 We did not expect the judge to impose a sentence of that length. 1193 01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:21,800 Rudy has apologised to the New York judge saying, 1194 01:17:21,880 --> 01:17:25,040 "Wine became my life and I lost myself in it", 1195 01:17:25,120 --> 01:17:29,160 an obsession that will be hard to pursue from behind bars. 1196 01:17:31,600 --> 01:17:35,600 I've had organised crime cases with dead bodies for less time. 1197 01:17:35,680 --> 01:17:37,200 That's the truth. 1198 01:17:37,280 --> 01:17:39,200 Dead bodies, less time. 1199 01:17:40,560 --> 01:17:44,360 The harm that was actually done in this case does not justify 1200 01:17:44,440 --> 01:17:46,600 the kind of sentence that was handed out. 1201 01:17:46,680 --> 01:17:47,880 It just doesn't. 1202 01:17:48,400 --> 01:17:51,640 Like he didn't profit from the crime as much as other people did. 1203 01:17:51,720 --> 01:17:54,800 And the people who profited the most from his crime 1204 01:17:54,880 --> 01:17:59,320 are living large and drinking great wine and they're not in jail and... 1205 01:18:00,600 --> 01:18:01,840 Others have suggested 1206 01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:04,880 that there are additional people that should be prosecuted, 1207 01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:07,360 but to bring a criminal prosecution, 1208 01:18:07,440 --> 01:18:09,880 it's not enough to say that they were negligent. 1209 01:18:10,280 --> 01:18:12,400 You have to prove they intended 1210 01:18:12,480 --> 01:18:16,480 to defraud someone by lying to them or making misrepresentations. 1211 01:18:18,240 --> 01:18:19,880 It's kind of like a game of musical chairs 1212 01:18:19,960 --> 01:18:23,600 and Rudy was the last one standing when the music stopped. 1213 01:18:28,920 --> 01:18:31,640 It is not the real end of the fakers. 1214 01:18:32,200 --> 01:18:37,040 If I go on investigating, I will find more people doing this, 1215 01:18:37,120 --> 01:18:39,200 but I'm going to stop. 1216 01:18:39,960 --> 01:18:44,120 I want to focus again on my job to produce authentic wines. 1217 01:18:57,600 --> 01:19:01,480 We're gathered tonight to play the final note in a symphony... 1218 01:19:01,680 --> 01:19:03,920 ...of which I am honoured to be the conductor. 1219 01:19:04,880 --> 01:19:07,400 But a conductor is nothing without his musicians. 1220 01:19:07,920 --> 01:19:11,760 Each one of you has picked the equivalent of two thousand bottles. 1221 01:19:15,360 --> 01:19:18,040 Thank you for your patience, your work and your joie de vivre... 1222 01:19:19,080 --> 01:19:21,840 because together we have played music both harmonious and refined. 1223 01:19:46,920 --> 01:19:50,520 This is the largest wine seizure the US Marshals ever handled. 1224 01:19:50,880 --> 01:19:52,520 Behind you we have over 500 bottles 1225 01:19:52,600 --> 01:19:56,680 that have been deemed counterfeit from Rudy Kurniawan's private collection. 1226 01:20:02,880 --> 01:20:07,040 I have no doubt that it's going to take years or decades or maybe never 1227 01:20:07,120 --> 01:20:10,080 to fully filter out all of Rudy Kurniawan's fake wines. 1228 01:20:16,160 --> 01:20:20,640 It's impossible to identify every single person who has one of those bottles. 1229 01:20:21,400 --> 01:20:22,800 It's broken! 1230 01:20:27,760 --> 01:20:31,120 You know, more scrupulous collectors have just bitten the bullet 1231 01:20:31,200 --> 01:20:33,000 and they've written off a bunch of stuff. 1232 01:20:33,080 --> 01:20:37,440 John Kapon, to his credit has, you know, anything questionable 1233 01:20:37,520 --> 01:20:40,800 he has taken back and he's refunded a lot of people's money. 1234 01:20:40,880 --> 01:20:42,520 All right. Good. 1235 01:20:42,720 --> 01:20:44,720 But I think a lot of people probably don't want to know 1236 01:20:44,800 --> 01:20:46,840 that their cellars are full of fakes. 1237 01:20:46,920 --> 01:20:49,760 So, they're just... It's still out there, you know. 1238 01:20:50,040 --> 01:20:53,960 For the best of Chile and Argentina and the rest... 160! 1239 01:20:54,720 --> 01:20:56,280 They'll circulate. 1240 01:20:57,040 --> 01:21:00,160 If you buy this, you will almost certainly get laid. 1241 01:21:00,240 --> 01:21:01,400 All right! 1242 01:21:01,480 --> 01:21:04,160 You're going to start me, sir, but at what price? 1243 01:21:04,240 --> 01:21:05,280 $10,000! 1244 01:21:05,360 --> 01:21:07,160 I don't look at wine catalogues any more. 1245 01:21:08,520 --> 01:21:10,200 I throw them in the wastebasket. 1246 01:21:10,800 --> 01:21:12,760 $200,000! 1247 01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:18,040 This whole industry has a pomp and circumstance to it. 1248 01:21:19,800 --> 01:21:23,120 You're either a believer or an apostate. 1249 01:21:28,840 --> 01:21:30,280 Cheers, guys! 1250 01:21:32,040 --> 01:21:34,720 Want some beer? You want some beer? 1251 01:21:36,840 --> 01:21:39,760 Like, dare you say the emperor has no clothes? 1252 01:21:43,120 --> 01:21:45,040 It's just liquid, it's wine. 1253 01:21:45,240 --> 01:21:47,400 But it's become a commodity. 1254 01:21:52,160 --> 01:21:56,000 Some of the biggest CEOs of corporate America... 1255 01:21:57,240 --> 01:22:00,280 They all were duped by this guy. 1256 01:22:02,600 --> 01:22:06,080 The moral to this story in my opinion is that 1257 01:22:06,160 --> 01:22:08,880 when you leave things unregulated, 1258 01:22:09,160 --> 01:22:11,360 you allow the wolves to come in 1259 01:22:11,440 --> 01:22:14,920 and game the system and this system had been gamed. 1260 01:22:17,920 --> 01:22:21,440 When I first discovered this case of wine that he sold me was fake, 1261 01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:24,600 I was very hurt and I felt like a fool, too. 1262 01:22:25,080 --> 01:22:26,800 I felt foolish, 1263 01:22:26,880 --> 01:22:31,920 but the number of amazing experiences I had with him, 1264 01:22:32,000 --> 01:22:34,840 far outweigh any anger I could have. 1265 01:22:36,120 --> 01:22:39,320 So, I forgave, you know. I forgave that. 1266 01:22:46,920 --> 01:22:50,280 When I think about him and I think about him quite a bit, 1267 01:22:50,360 --> 01:22:53,960 I just cannot put two and two together. 1268 01:22:54,040 --> 01:22:56,600 I just can't because it's like talking 1269 01:22:58,360 --> 01:22:59,840 about black and white. 1270 01:23:01,320 --> 01:23:02,480 Vincent! 1271 01:23:02,960 --> 01:23:06,080 I have not tried, but I would love to see him. 1272 01:23:07,320 --> 01:23:11,120 One day, I hope, I'll be able to sit down with him. 1273 01:23:11,720 --> 01:23:15,720 I don't know. I'll just tell him, "What was this all about?"