[vc_row full_screen_section_height=”no”][vc_column][vc_column_text]The news of a Amarone is Michele Antonio Fino, in the article for Intravino, euphemistically defines it as “double face”.
This is an Amarone which, under the label with the words “Amarone della Valpolicella 1997 Riserva” has another, smaller one, which instead reports the words “Rosso Verona Indicazione Geografica Tipica 2013”.
Michele Antonio Fino continues in the article ( full version ): “…we also note that the Amarone appears without a band, without the words Denominazione di Origine Controllata, nor with the correct order of the symbols, since it is a 1997, and it is worth remembering that it does not matter whether the bottle has a back label”.
The case bounced around the major social networks in China and was reported by the Facebook page “You said Wine?” which for years has identified and relaunched suspicious cases where they are not real frauds, with Italian sounding more or less (un)believable.
Il Prosecco It is perhaps the most imitated Italian denomination thanks to its recent success, which has earned it a large following of admirers and speculators: here then is Brosecco, Prosec up to the ProGrigio of the English chain of ASDA supermarkets which has decided to offer its customers a blend of Prosecco and Pinot Grigio.
Just last September, the Fraud Repression Inspectorate blocked 30 million cans of fake Prosecco ready to be put on sale on the Ali Baba online platform.
In 2016 there were 140 attempts at Prosecco sounding silenced in 2016 by the Prosecco System – the body that brings together the three Consortia for issues of protection and defense against third parties – and more than 500 online violations suppressed by the Fraud Repression in the space of two years.
However, it is not only Italian wines that are counterfeited.
According to experts in the field, as Scott Evers di www.wineauthentication.com.au, “…over 20% of the wine on the market is fake” , in line with the luxury goods market.
The problem of counterfeiting, however, does not only concern the monetary aspect but also the health aspect, since in fact counterfeit wine does not undergo the controls to which wine in the controlled production chain is instead subject.
In some cases the forgery is obvious and is detected thanks to a Press low level, letter different from the one usually used for the label, information missing, errors of spelling.
In others the differences with the real models are much more subtle, as in the case of the three bottles of Penfolds illustrated below that the site The Wine Wankers had submitted to its readers:
Just last November, Chinese police discovered 14 bottles of fake Penfolds, thanks to a tip-off from Treasury Wine Estates – which has Penfolds in its portfolio and which had flagged retailers where Penfolds bottles were being sold at extremely low prices – another sign of almost certain counterfeiting.
However, over time there have been counterfeiters who have been able to imitate the originals perfectly – or rather almost perfectly – and have managed to sell them at a high price.
It is the case of Rudy Kurniawan, born Zhen Wang Huang, a wine collector who was arrested in 2012 and sentenced in 2013 to ten years in prison for fraud.
Kurniawan was in fact trading in wines that he counterfeited, buying large quantities of Burgundy which he bottled and labelled as higher-end wines, such as Domain of Romanée-Conti.
Kurniawan had made history as the largest single-consignor auction ever: $24.7 million at an Acker, Merrall & Condit auction.
A suspicious game of cards framed him. Clos St. Denis by Domaine Ponsot, which dated back to well before any recorded vintage of Clos St. Denis.
She was called to work on the case alongside the FBI. Maureen Downey, who is perhaps the greatest expert in the field today and who has founded her own consulting company, Chai Consulting.
And if in the past years the ones being counterfeited were mostly old vintages of prestigious French brands, today the trend has shifted towards more recent vintages; moreover, the counterfeiting of crus is decreasing but those of high-end Californian, Australian, Italian and Spanish companies are increasing.
But which are the most counterfeited bottles?
According to Scott Evers, who, following in the footsteps of Maureen Downey, has made a career out of unmasking fake wines, the most imitated are Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Petrus, Lafite and Château d'Yquem, especially with regards to historical vintages, interviewed by Drew of Wine Wankers, Evers reveals that if we take a single vintage into consideration, it is 1945 Rothschild sheep to win the gold medal, while in Asia the counterfeits mostly concern Lafite, in addition to Penfolds Grange and Bin 707.
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