Uncorking Wine Fraud: Maureen Downey on Counterfeits, Crime, and Blockchain Solutions

One of the things about wine fraud. If we're going to tackle this problem, what we need is oversight through the supply chain. Because the wine market is so opaque and there's so much grain market and black market, then that's how fraud gets in. >> Sit back and grab a glass. It's wine talks with all K. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K and we are in studio today, but have a conversation with Maureen Downey up in the list out to his Hills. Introductions are just a moment. Wine talks, of course, available. I already'll pendore, etc. Where have you hang out for podcasting? It have a list of the conversations I just had with John Wilkinson, a Bintobottle. If you've ever been interested in starting a brand, starting a winery, he's part incubator, part processor. For instance, the whole brand prisoner started his facility. Great conversation about the industry and the entrepreneurship side of the industry. Also some great conversations about Armenian wines that we recorded a few months ago out in Armenia. I'll have a listen to that. But not why we're here today. We're here to have a conversation with Maureen Downey depreeminent authority and consultant on fake wine. Yes, there is such a thing. Some people think I sold fake wine, I'm just joking. But welcome to the show. >> Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. >> We had a little trouble connecting, but that's great and glad you're here. I would next time we're up in that area, we're going to stop by and say hi and taste the wine and continue this conversation. >> Yeah, much more fun if we have a glass in hand, right? >> It is. I started this thing because I hate the swirling and sniffing shows. I think that propagates the aristocracy of wine and that has nothing to do with it. We enjoy doing it and pontificating, but most people don't understand what we're talking about. So I like to tell the stories, but these are, I think, what you've been doing. There's incredible stories. But before we get to that, I want to continue this conversation since Lister's heard your master of wine story. I had applied on the airplane. I told him over this, I was flying home from New York and he said, hey, do you want to be a master of wine? I'm like, yeah, sure. Why not? I can do that. I applied online and the essay was good. They liked my essay, but they hated my tasting notes. But there's a whole sort of understanding of what the master of wine wants from you, right? >> Absolutely. It's not a free form. Do it your own way. It's interesting, especially as an American. So I was in the program for many years. I did very well on the tasting. I never got that great on the essays, but I focused on the tasting. I wanted to pass that first. I'm a very good natural taste. I absolutely, the advanced master's soul and a degree at 23. The advanced master's soul, my exam, it's my three. And Fred Dame said I was one of the best natural tasteers he had ever seen. And he moved me to New York in 1996. And that's how this my whole journey started. So I'm a good natural taste. But tasting wine is a language. And it's just like learning any other language. I can't go to Russia and talk about that blue color over there with a flat tire because I don't speak Russian. I can see it. We can all see it. But you're not using the same terminology and the same you know sentence format and all of that that somebody isn't going to understand you. So I think you know following the WSET and then the MW or the master's soul EA programs, they really kind of they bring you along to so that you're speaking the same language that other professional speak. The interesting thing that you made and the side is not what we're here to get there because I want to talk about fraud in the wine business. But it's an important concept for listeners to understand the industry of the master's song and the master of wine and the diploma W set. But you said something before we started the show. And that was there are a lot of masters of wine that none of us say don't do anything, but they don't ever have a preeminence in the industry. And it's an incredibly difficult degree to get or certification. But and that's why I wonder and this is why my comment when I started this conversation was like depending why you're getting into it now it's so arduous you probably can't get into it without the complete passion and get through it without the passion and the need to do it. But the same time when it's all said and done is what you do with it and the information you learn that matters. Well, and for me I think it's even a little bit it's more than that it's because there are I read some articles recently that you know, oh you can you can get the knowledge someplace else you don't have to take these courses. And I would strongly disagree with that with that sentiment because the the value going through these courses is not necessarily in and the education that you get it's in the connections that you get it's in the people that you meet it's in the relationships that you can establish. And you know for myself for example, you know with all this fraud stuff, people not known that I had been passionate about fraud and speaking out about it in 2004 2005 2006 2007 when Rudy did get arrested in 2012 people wouldn't have known oh my god she was right we need to talk to her and I know all these big producers in Bordeaux and doors in Burden, he wouldn't open to me. So I think you know being in the program and making the connections and and as you you were just recently in Northern California and you interviewed Nova Katamattre who's a master in wine wine maker consulting wine maker and a dear friend of mine. I wouldn't I have no of a as a great friend if it weren't for the MW program so I'm very grateful that I did that I did study that now you know I had an opportunity to continue on the MW program or deal with the fact that Rudy just got arrested Rudy Crenillo on this counterfeiter who might have been saying for 10 years was counterfeiting and I chose to build that instead of studying more but you know I think for a lot of people they think that somehow getting the MW means they're gonna they're gonna suddenly just have to be overwhelmed with offers and money and opportunities and that's not necessarily the case and today especially there is this new class of people coming through who are coming from other professions you know their attorneys they're this and they win new career wine seems to be we get we get and not only of Demi's side but we seem to kind of be the dumpster for all other industries like people that you know fail out of other industries or they get bored they're like oh I only do wine wine is fun but it's it's actually career and it's actually work you know but there's a whole new right industry of people who they have learned everything but they don't have any background in line so I think that's really weird like you could pass the test with no experience and that's I think that's totally strange but it's very strong and yeah I'm the opposite even though you know study a lot and read a lot of old books and I was fabulous time now right now reading a book on a Gertrude Stein and Hemingway's experience in Paris and it has a lot to do with wine as well but yeah that's true I mean some of these conversations I have on these shows with people that are educated in the wine industry but they can't hold a conversation about what the wine industry is because it's more than just a fermented grape juice in the bottle and maybe that's you know in fact my conversation with John Wilkinson in the bottle was nothing's really changed for 12,000 years on what's in the bottle you know maybe some technologies but it's still fermented grape juice but the business of wine is completely different and in difficult and managed to manage the reason I sold my company was it got it just got too complicated for the size of my company to manage to be able to produce a profit from it even though we were selling three to four hundred thousand bottles of wine I sold 20 million bottles of wine maker I mean yeah it's starting to get too hard well one of the things that I find fascinating is that even the most successful wine makers are at their heart farmers that's what they are because the wine is made in the vineyard and you know so now I've got a blockchain technology that is anti fraud inventory control tracking trace try explaining that it's difficult let's talk about that because I just had a podcast I won't mention any names I it's no friend of mine in the industry you know we started in the century in the 70s and I reposted the podcast recently and I got an email from a gentleman I think he's in LA he sells in in rare wines for sellers resells them for people that have them and he was offended I reposted this podcast because he said this gentleman is known for his fraudulent wine just counterfeit wine so I'm not I don't want to mention any names just it's just a fascinating subject and and I when I brought it up over the last two weeks that you're going to be on the show to people they're like What do you mean? I said, oh, there's serious stuff. Now, either you knew who Rudy was. And that's obviously the most obvious story, but it's been going on a lot longer than that. Oh, plenty of the elder wrote about counterfeit wine and 70 AD. Oh, well, that was really. Yeah. He is his friends. He considered himself rather connoisseur. And his friends were waxing and waning over a bottle of Flernia, which was the most popular wine at the time. And he was writing what idiots they were basically that they didn't know that what they were drinking wasn't real Flernia. Yeah, that's fascinating. 70 AD. So this is, it's not a new problem. It's not going away. It's getting worse. Currently, so people are shocked to the size of the market. So when I talk about wine products, I don't just talk about counteracts because you have to talk about fraud. So you have to talk about, you know, the sale of the resale of stolen wine, the resale of wine that has been through hurricanes and fires. So resale of South ones, you know, blue legs, spirits, but to give you some perspective, the World Health Organization states that 25% of all alcohol consumed in the world is illicit. 25% 20, that's the World Health Organization. So wow. Yeah. You talk about this. You'll fake, fake, happy Van Winkle fake forever. 25% that's phenomenal. And it's, but if you really, if you pay attention to the news, it's not because there are, there are news stories twice or three times a week in the wine train, you know, 10,000 bottles seized here, you know, 50,000 bottles seized there. And it's, it's a combination of high end and lower end. You know, I wouldn't buy listeners to Google the South Sacaja from at watch the carbonary, you know, redo. So organized crime of gotten involved in their new illicit grand scale. And they get digital printers and they, they recreate all the anti fraud. They make the tissue paper. They make the wooden boxes. They make the, the, um, bands that go around the wooden boxes. I mean, we got high and step. There was a, there's another one that's a Bordeaux bottling line in China. And there's a Bordeaux bottling line of a Bordeaux, you know, it's, it's not a major. It's a Pt crew. But you see this and it's a Chinese bottling line and bottles are perfect. Wow. Because they have the bottles. And a bottle man is actually or bottling of the juice. Yeah. We have no idea what's in it. Yeah. It's so before Rudy, whichever, but for the listeners of the movie sour grapes and Rudy Kern, I always get his name on, but he's my neighbor. He's my neighbor here. He's in an Arcadia. And I remember, we weren't drinking of them. No, no, no, and I just the fascinating story about, and I'm a huge fan of, for instance, the movie Catch Me If You Can't in Frank Aver's story. And I love hearing this story because I don't know, maybe I have this, this romantic view of being able to do it to the extent of just to fool somebody not to cheat anybody, but just be on full and everybody not people don't know that Walt Disney's career started in doing that. He was a fraudulent war relics vendor. Was it really? Yeah, he would make distressed war helmets and sell them as real. Interesting. Okay. Don't the spirit. So before Rudy became a movie in the story, was it that people aware of this and you know, we're oxygen houses, you diligently seeking proper goods and not. Well, and many of them are still not. So Rudy learned from a man named Hardy Rodenstock. So this is kind of fun. Hardy Rodenstock's real name was a mine hard worker. He was a German music producer turned counterfeiter wine extraordinaire. So he started making old and rare wine in the 80s. Then selling it and, and you know, the sapping is that a lot of the benchmark tasting notes from maybe some of the biggest critics in the world. War bottles that were. Made by hard road and stuck really. And then Rudy Crenillo on came along and he started making old and rare wine. The interesting thing is that Hardy was somewhat narrow. Hardy made, you know, mostly bored of lots of you can like all these. The oldest bottle of you can in the world. I took a bottle of you can back to you can. And Pierre Raton was like, yeah. So this bottle was made a year after Marie Antoinette lost her head in a year before my house was built. You know, and it's just totally wasn't real. Yeah, but people paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for it. So. So Hardy Rodenstock, I think, you know, kind of influenced Rudy. And then in the wake of the Rudy Crenillo and he was arrested in 2012. He was able to make himself wine for about 10 years because he was funded by acromerol condit and John cake barn. And these documents are available on winefraud.com. Our website that's a resource for people where you can actually see people giving Rudy a million dollar loans through the auction house to to come up with these wines. Knowing, though knowingly do that or they thought Rudy was a rare and special guy who is able to source these things. Well, if that's the case, why wouldn't you just buy a million dollars worth of wine for Rudy? Why are you doing that through your own auction house? Don't know. That's a good question. Right. Right. It is because then you're going to go buy it auction and pay the 30% to the auction house. Why not just get a million dollars with the wine from Rudy. So that made sense. But so anyway, in the wake of Rudy getting arrested in 2012, I started saying that Rudy was counterfeiting in 2002. I was the only woman in the industry. I started in options in 2000. They only became legal in New York in 1996. And Christie's in Southern. He started in 1998. And we're all in company might have started in 98 as well. What auction and wine? It only became legal in 1996. The first auctions in New York were in 98. What about Michael broadband and you know, that's London. You blind and so that's London. Humble line was in Boston. But in New York, they weren't they were not legal. I didn't know that. Yeah. So I started in 2000. So I was kind of at the very beginning of the industry. And and I started to find, you know, when you line bottles up and one of them looks different. I have a little bit of OCD and a bit of a photographic memory. So when things are slightly different, they they stand out to me. I do wouldn't puzzle as a as a hobby, right? So like I'm a puzzle person. I try to find patterns and things. So, so these things started to stick out. There was really nobody to teach me about it. So I had to go and learn about glass from glass experts and paper from paper experts and started to put all this stuff together kind of forensically and learned about hearty road and stock. And and so I started to say that Rudy was counterfeiting in 2002. He wasn't arrested until 2012 and that was a very well-retenged. And I'm not getting upset. Sorry. I just I just that sounded like I got shoved out there. I didn't. So, you know, and and there are a lot of guys that really don't like me because it's big money. Yeah. So, you know, I stuck to my guns and I because I knew it was right. You know, it's that little, you know, sister Catherine on this shoulder and sister Angela on this shoulder saying, do what's wrong? So, you know, that's interesting. Stop there for a second. Because in Francis, he can speak his book about about fraud and deceit and murder and all that in the wine business. Yeah. You know, she talks about that there wasn't really an awareness. Well, there's an awareness, but there was no interest in prosecution back in those days for alcohol and at the federal level. They're still not. It was the Koch brothers that sort of press the issue with Rudy and whatever else they did to bring it to the forefront. And she also mentions that, you know, the prosecutor isn't happy with himself when they prosecute Joe Frenze for faking, you know, white Zinvendell. And you're saying today that's still the case that the feds don't have a keen interest in pursuing this because they're pursuing other stupid things, but whatever. In the state of California, well, they're pursuing, yeah, exactly. They're, you know, they're going after bullshit and letting letting looters out. In the state, so the in the city, California wine is important enough to our GDP that we have an FBI agent. So I've been working with the FBI agent. She's, she's, we have a new one recently out of the San Francisco office works in San Rosa and we have a home in Sonona. So they do a lot of training and stuff up there. We've worked on a lot of cases, John Fox, you know, put a couple of John Josh Carmel, we put a bunch of people in jail. But one of the really frustrating things for us is that there is a cut a file who owns, well, he does shell companies, but who owns one of the biggest storage and transport companies in the United States of wine, not be in the line industry as a convicted pet a file. And he was operating without license in California in St. Louis and maybe in Chicago, New Jersey. in the state of California. So in one licenses of misdemeanor. The FBI could not get the California ADC to go after this guy for illegally selling wine because it's a misdemeanor. Okay, why they care. But illegally selling wine without licenses because there's lots of those guys around here. Yeah, yeah, which means, you know, the next time that you're that you're pissed off that you hit a pothole, thank a counterfeiter because he's not paying the taxes that are due. You know, this guy actually got arrested in St. Louis. They rated his his office in St. Louis, arrested him, arrested his wife and arrested his CFO. Any of millions in back taxes to St. Louis. So why you said transporting one. Any salesman, any imports one. You knew it was doing all the unlicensed. So it's what amazes me is if the only thing that the government goes after. And I actually spoke at the National Conference of St. Likker authorities a few years ago. The only thing they care about is shipping regulations because the money is behind the all of the money is the lobbying money. So they don't actually care about the law. It's just the distributors who care about keeping their distribution dollars. So it's a WSWA. Yeah, it's so frustrating to me that I and so what I said to these guys is, look, you know, California, you're I know you're out there. You know, go after all of these people who are legally selling wine because they're shipping it. I mean, if you care so much about shipping the miners, go after the people who are totally breaking the law, not the winery that just wants to get wine to their client in state. That's why Z. So yeah, it's frustrating to me. It's a it's a well, we've been dealing with this forever. My wrapping this company up here, my wife had to shut down 32 different tax returns to different states. And as you already know, some states charge the tax by the gallon, some by the leaders, some by the sit bottle, and it's just ridiculous to try and calculate. And just the effort to say, hey, we're not doing it anymore. It's become a nightmare for her to figure out, but she's a licensed CPA and she wants to do it right. It's funny to say that because I have, I mean, I still they've heard 35 years every Tuesday, tasting wine and I had every conceivable type of vendor in the store, right? Yeah. Wine your reps and I had supply our reps and I had Southern in here. And of course, all the big guys and all the bottom fishers and and and you know, now that you bring it up, I know of a couple bottom fishers that were not licensed to sell me wine. And one of them actually went off and got tasting room so that he would be licensed. I thought I was rather noble of them to actually, you know, prepare to pay the taxes. Yeah. But then I when I this building I'm in right now is licensed as a 0 2 as a 9 as a 12 a 17 18 to 20. And I'm trying to market the building with these licenses. And one guy can't be as, hey, I may have a guy. He's been selling board over years. You know, black market. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's got a list of clients. He's selling all the classified gross and the ground crew burglaries and maybe he wants a license. I don't think myself how annoying. Right. Right. And here's your wife doing 32 tax returns. Exactly. So that's a kind of that's a fault. And so, so that is one of the things that I've figured out about fraud. So, you know, over the last 20 years, everybody that's had an idea about, you know, their anti fraud solution has sent it to me. So I've got to do a lot of good market research and poke tools in it. And I finally figured out that, you know, you can't just put a sticker on a bottle and think that you're safe. What you have to do, the producer has to be able to watch that bottle as it moves through the supply chain as does the distributor so that we can eliminate some of this grain market, you know, activity. And I know that I'm not going to be popular with the grain market. And I'm totally fine with that because if I can provide transparency to the producer and to the consumer, those are the two parties that I care about. You know, all the guys are making so much money in the middle because they worked as a sole way for two years and it happened to know a couple rich guys who are selling their wine. Like, they shouldn't be making all the money. You know, the producers should be, should be able to be making the money, the licensed wholesalers and distributors. And then the consumer should know what they're getting. I mean, one of the problems with, with the John Foxe problem at Premier Crue. That's one of the cases that I worked on with the FBI. John Foxe, even back when I was at Morel and Company in 2000, John Foxe would put pigs in at the auction. And he would send out emails as though he already had those follows and hint. The auction had even happened yet. Wow. So I knew that guy was dirty. And then he sent in line when I was at Zackies and half of it was counterfeit. And then by the time I moved back to California in 2004. And, you know, it was a part of a group called the Bordeaux One enthusiast. And we get together and have dinners. And so I got to know that people in this group in person really well. And a bunch of them had wine. They're like, yeah, you know, I got a lot of, you know, I bought futures five years ago and they're not here yet. And I'm like, yeah, you're not getting futures. I mean, the reason that you give somebody money for futures is so that you have assured provenance. Right. Well, John Foxe is out there on the secondary market by the line. That's not what you paid for. So if we can provide oversight through the supply chain. So that the guy who buys futures actually gets you know, wine of good provenance, then we've solved part of the problem, I think. It's interesting because I look, I sold wine that was 10 to 20 dollars. My great collection of Grand Crouberg anise in classified growth here. But I had clients over the years who asked for those wines. And I would get them prices and they would go, I can get it cheaper. And I kept telling like, but you don't understand this is from the sort like, for instance, if somebody wanted a defeat, it would come from the family that direct connection with with the organization with the, I forgot the name of the family now, but or there's a vendor here who all his wines in in seller are from directly from the winery. Right. Yeah, you can go find the step cheaper, but man, you now that it's exposing how prevalent it is. I didn't realize it was so I think about five, five, my number is five, my collegiate number is 10% of fine wine is counterfeit. A lot of it happens at the lower end. So so here is the, the shave off as the name of my solution. Shade consulting is the name of my company, Shae is perhaps for seller. So the shave off is a Web 3 solution that we can implement either at the producer or in the secondary market with one of our authentic theaters, who we now have all over the world. And what it does is we put the information and a blockchain ledger is created. So now you go on wine searcher and you see that there are 10 bottles of this little fee, 82 of the feet listed. Well, the vendors who have shave off bottles unless they're vendors on my block list and they're not allowed to use my system like Acre, there'll be a little URL and a potential buyer can go on and they can click on that URL like they can see the blockchain secured ledger of not only authenticity but provenance because it'll show you if you go on shave off.com you can see one of these ledgers. It'll show you, you know, that the ball was purchased from, you know, Shatown Estates by Red Dame or by name confidential on this date. It was sold at his auction on this date, this lot, purchased by Marine Down. Now, Marine Down is selling it through K&L, you know, on this date and then if the person buys the bottle, the ledger gets transferred to them so that we have this ledger. Now on wine searcher, if you have 10 bottles and four of them are in the shave off and six of them are not, the four that are vaulted are going to be worth more because you know the authenticity of provenance. So in that way, hey, if you want to gamble and you want a bottom fish, go for it. But what I always say is that if you're spending, you know, $3,000 on a $5,000 bottle, you have not saved $2,000, you have probably wasted through it because if you're getting a screening deal, it's salvage, you know, it's the list. Yeah. So pay for pay for probably and there will be a stratification in the market. The people that want to pay my clients pay for provenance. I tell them because I do, I manage collections, I find offers and I tell them if you want the cheapest wine, I'm not your girl. Right. Because I'm not going to go for the cheapest. I'm going to go for for top provenance. This is this talk about I want to get into the blockchain stuff for the second here, but I want I want to peel back some of the things I saw come across. desk over the years that you can probably poke holes in. For instance, these 3D stickers, what are they called for holograms, that they were putting on wine. So I was trying to figure out, I had one of my vendors actually who was selling Chilean wines here was like, oh, I became the rep for this thing and here's the brochure and I'm like, I still don't get it. That seems just as fakeable. Well, not a one, it substantiates a counterfeit refill because you could easily empty that bottle and refill it and that with a needle. So if you've got a lot of information on that, right? You know, you've got and core everybody's Corvind, huh? Yeah. And there was a situation in Europe where there was this huge international rank of hospitality workers who were putting their Corvind and emptied fine wine bottles in with the laundry and then taking the laundry out and somebody would come around and collect the bottles and they refilled, they sold thousands of bottles and online auctions of refilled, you know, I consider that a cosmetic solution. That's also something and I've spoken with what some producers who use it, you know, somebody could recreate that bottle tag. And five, by the way, 5% of those tags get, get scanned. Five. Five percent. And if you are close enough to go like this, it's too late. You already heard of the bottle. Right. So now that's the problem, not an investment. So anything where you have to be in proximity to the bottle, and my world is not a solution. Anything that is cosmetic is not a solution. Somebody in China, if they can recreate an entire bottle, they can 3D print those bubble tags and make a million, you know, Lafayne Montreches and okay, five percent of people will ever scam those things. Maybe they'll get caught, but they won't get caught until they sell a couple thousand bottles. Right. So I don't find that to be a robust solution. It doesn't, it does not address the supply chain. It doesn't give the buyer any protection prior to purchase. And it doesn't help the producer know of mistrinking that one. No, I couldn't understand it because I said, I don't know, this seems easily think, but I love this. I'd not love it. I appreciate it. But the idea that you, yeah, you could core of anything, pour it out and refill it with whatever. I wanted to taste it in the day, very high in tasting. It was all grunge. It was a vertical, you know, we were supposed to guess what it was and where it was and all those things. And it was clear to me, this is interesting. It's one of actually this question. This was, I think the earliest vintage was like an 89 or 87 and up to like 2015, and some random vintage in between seven different wines. The question amongst this group of Efficient Auto's who had these incredible sellers was, is this a vertical? And then what do you think it is? And my experience taught me this was clearly a vertical. And this is kind of interesting because if these, any of these wines were faked, there would have been some kind of anomaly in the sequence of wines. And it was clear to me when I was tasting them that these were the same wine maker from the same plots of land in the same general vicinity and that these, the tarot art differences with only thing I was sensing. Yeah. So the wine making expertise was obvious. But I'm wondering if somebody buys a fake lafitte. Have you ever heard of somebody saying, man, I opened this wine, it's just in taste, right? Of course. So there's, there's, go back and read John Kate von's horrific tasting notes. I mean, those are littered with counterfeit wines. And if there's one of two things that happen, one of three things that happen. Number one, the counterfeit are intentionally putt's tainted wine in. So cork lime. Use a little bit of cork and then bummer it's cork, right? That will bottle. Yeah. A lot of times people chalk it up to a bad bottle. So that's why when I started in options, this really kind of, it was exposed because before options were big in New York, people would have a case of peptice and they'd go down and they'd have a bomb. And they'd be like, oh, god, that's, you know, that's amazing. The angels are singing. And then six months later, they'd have another one. And then we'd be like, oh, that's just not so good. Must be a bad bomb, right? And then they'd open another one. And it would be great. Well, what we noticed, especially bottles coming from Royal Line Company, was if you took 12 out, four of them were counterfeit. But nobody collectors weren't taking them out and inspecting them and, you know, maybe they'd take them out and rack them. But a lot of people just left them in the case. So what Royal Line merchants would do and what other people did and there's a, there's a particular guy in L.A. that did quite a lot of this back in the day. I think, I, I, anyway, you know, they would take up a full case. They would take, you know, four cases and turn it into six cases or eight cases. Well, the margin is second line generally. So, hey, there's a great way to pad your margins. Right. Right. So it wasn't until the shirt putting these bottles up next to each other, it would be like, okay, these three or these four don't fit. Now, when it comes to the taste, with the old and rare wine, you know, I mean, one of the ridiculous things about the John Keat Bob tasting notes was that he'd be like, yeah, you know, we tasted another mag of 1950 Laflour from Big Boys seller, you know, tasted fourth time this month consecutive notes. They didn't make that many banks. And by the way, I'm selling a bunch in my auction next week. So it'll be great. You know, it was totally a pitch to sell these counterfeit wines. But a lot of times the wines would be off. Now, what we did the other night, I have, there's a counterfeiter from Russian and Alexander Iubov, or he called himself Alex Anakin. And he got caught and he was counterfeiting Romantic Conti. And the packaging is brilliant. I mean, it is so good. But he was caught. I have a bunch of this counterfeit bottles. And I've hired Ronin Saber, who's a Master's in Leia. He's the CEO of the European Quorum Master's in Leia's as the CEO for Shea Valtz. And he and we were up in Napa. He was like, come on, let's open this, let's open this. And I had some wider friends and wine makers over and I was like, all right, fine. I'm like, you guys, you can open it for the sucks. And so we opened up an '04 Romantic Conti. And everybody was like, this is disgusting. So this guy was making their organized crime, making them in Russia, selling them in Switzerland, you know, as four or six at a time out of out of his car or, you know, selling them to different people who would sell them to different people. But they're so expensive. You don't need to have a strong supply chain. You know, you can cover it up. Yeah. And still make tons of money. So I think one of the things that Rudy did, which made him different, was that he actually tried to make decent ones. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, let's go back to the to the John Kate Montaise notes, you know, 1950, a lot of flour out of mad, you know, tasted consecutively four times. They made six mags the entire year. And he drank more than those and he wrote tasty nuts on more than those every week. And we're definitely sold more than those. But how many people have really had that one enough time to say, oh, yeah, that's correct. And you don't open bags very often. So that you don't open a cellar. 1945 Muton that has lived this life, you take a bunch of 1945 Muton that have actually lived in the same box. It's 1947 when they were put in a box. They're all going to be so different. They're like people now that they're 60 years old, you know, 60-year-old triplets are not as similar as 60-year-old as, you know, those triplets are when they're four days old. Of course. Right. That's interesting. I don't think anybody has the palate. I really truly don't think anybody has the palate to truly be able to taste some of these old and rare lines outside of a family who produced them. You know, who has grown up, you know, I think that a bearative lane and, and, you know, those people at Romantic Conti have been around that line for so long. They would know what a very old Romantic Conti tasted like. But most other people don't have that experience. So that opens up a door for counters. And that is why most counterfeiters today are not making old and wrong. Because they don't want to have to get period glass. They don't want to have to get, you know, I mean, the forensic stuff that we look at is, you know, what is the chemical composition of the paper? What is the chemical composition of the glue? How was the ink applied? You know, is the ink the correct chemical composition for age? What is the capsule? Has the capsule and the bottle, or excuse me, have the capsule in the label or the label's aged together? Right. Because a lot of times they'll age the labels and then put them on. Well, they'll be disparate between the pieces. So it's like, well, it's like seeing a 65 year old woman at the 25 year old face. You know that there's been some work done, right? And just feel those around, yeah. That's fascinating. You know, lead capsules from the day. So like Cork was better, better off years and years ago than it is today. Well, and you got to get the right glass. [BLANK_AUDIO] easier to mass produce these the newer models. So what kind of things would I prisoner? I mean that kind of thing. Well, so a lot of the big counterfeits like in Asia are very their entry level. But a woman was just arrested in the UK for selling counterfeit yellowtail. The UK is a wash and car for yellowtail. Yeah. Why it's 349 or some. Well, I didn't make a month. A bunch of $1 bills or you make a couple hundred dollar bills. I said, but look, you and I know that glass these days is $16 a case just for the glass, the carton. Then you got to fake the labels and you know, you and the juices got to be it's got to be something a 50 cents a liter or something. You got to put something. Yeah, but I mean, the people who are drinking this or drinking it out of pubs and they they aren't really paying attention. Although I think it is amazing. And he can, in some cases, those are if you are a regular consumer of an entry level wine, I think that you would probably be able to notice the difference more than somebody drinking a 1945 Mutant for the first time. Because you have a set expectation. I would agree with that. But if you're if you're, let's just take yellowtail for a set of even prisoner, which you I have a hard time drinking it. You know, if you throw a bunch of stuff at a bottle, most people aren't going to know they're just saying, I'm drinking prisoners. This is great. But this is take yellowtail. I mean, you know, the wink wines and the naked wine naked wines are 60 cents a liter. That's, you know, $3.60 a 40 cents a case. You're not going to buy much cheaper than that to get it into the bottle to fake yellowtail. I think most people are not going to just, you know, yellowtail shardney and something from the middle of Spain. I don't 100 percent. But these people aren't focused on what they're drinking. They're focused on being at a pub, you know, or whatever it is that they're doing. So I think at the end, I think that the people who did this, it was a combination of organized prong from China and Eastern Europe. And they made the bottles and brought them to the UK and just sold the crap out of them. You know, I was in London. I judge it the International Wine Challenge. And I went into one of those little mini, you know, there are a couple of large grocery chains. And I went into one of their little stores by a tube stop and a bottle of Hendrix. And I took it back and I put it in the freezer and it froze. What? Yeah. The bottle of Hendrix in the UK, well, it's Scottish. But wow. Yeah. It's really crazy. I know. The fake bottle of Hendrix. Yeah. That's why I drink Gordon's. So I mean, it happens. And it's, you know, and I think that, you know, you get, so this woman apparently was buying, you know, somebody shut up with a van full of yellow talents and, hey, I've got this extra. Do you want to buy it? You know, super price for you. And she bought it. But these people are, you know, they go around to these little stores and they say, oh, so and so store committed to big D cases and they only bought 20. I've got 30 extra cases. Do you want them? A good story. Yeah. That's a great story. Yeah. I heard it all the time. So how does it? Well, we're going to talk about this. This is a fascinating stuff. But, you know, we get the three tier system America, right? You have to go from the supplier with us, the importer or the winery to if you use a distributor like youngs, they're R&DC or or Southern or the big guys. I think I, is there fraud? Not from them because they're, I mean, even Southern is like an internal ABC rep who's there all the time. But is there fraud to them? 100%. Wow. So I've gotten bottles of, for example, Vogueway that allegedly came directly from Drey Pasachev to a reputable vendor and, and then to my client. And so what happens? Because wine is gotten so expensive, things happen in transport. There is a fa, a very, very fine bordeaux wine. And they realized that somebody on their own bottling line was swapping out authentic bottles for counterfeits and putting it counterfeits in the OWC's. Wow. So people, yeah. So people across the value chain, you know, realize this, you know, and, and so here, here's, I think this is fascinating. So there was a, a ship carrying Domandal Romney County and it stopped in on floor in France. And this, why he was stolen from the port. The police got it back. It went to Canada. The importer in Canada immediately turned around and sold his allocation to brokers in New York City, who sold the wine to a, an executive of Goldman Sachs, who put it in his house at the Hamptons. And then that guy's seller manager, when he was away, stole the wine. And that seller manager ended up jumping off the exit sells the day that he was supposed to get a range or sentence. Oh, wait. Yeah. That was not good. It was in the news. But so that line got stolen and transported. And then it went to a sole importer in Canada, who turned around and gray marketed it to the United States. So that's supposed to be a good supply chain. But DRC can't control the bottles once they leave. This is why we have to control the supply chain to control fraud. Because a lot of times what happens is the, you know, truck drivers are beginning to pay attention to how much the wine's are worth. Yeah. You just take a couple cases off the top of the, take a couple cases off the top of the pallet and you've got a down payment for a house. Sure. You know, that whole truck of papy that was stolen how many years ago. Right. There's that big step. It does. It does. And I'll tell you with this shavall solution, I have talked to some of these big wholesalers and distributors and they're very interested in it because they want that oversight because they want to, you know, the, the, the, the, the interesting thing about this is that at the bottle level, you can't swap it out. So one of the other things that happens a lot is people put their wine in storage, right? And you've got a bottle of 82 petriots and storage. Guy who loves the storage facility needs some money. He goes and sells your 82 petriots and when somebody else comes in with an 82 petriots, he puts your, he replaces your bottle. And sometimes like in Frank's Distinguished Felt's book, you know, the Ponzi scheme ends up running out. Yeah, right. But this solution protects the individual bottle because you can't swap my bottle. That's my bottle of the fee. It's not a bottle of the fee anymore. It's my bottle of the fee. And, and the producer can, can see where it is, you know, and the consumer can see where it's been and that the wholesaler can, can track where it goes. And, you know, there's going to be some issues. There's going to be some gray market. But the gray market is really where a lot of that fraud gets into the three tier system. That was the other thing I told the, the national conference of state liquor authorities. This three tier system in my opinion is a joke. It is a joke. It's a total joke. And, and it doesn't work because in the state of California, you can be an importer and a vendor. So there you go. Three tier system broken, right? So, well, as I talk about, prohibition was never repealed. It was just broken up into 50 pieces that never make control. And it's a pan. I will say something interesting. We're going to be on an hour really soon here. And this is going to have to be a two-parter. But I was just awarded. And it hasn't hit the press yet because it hasn't started yet, but it's contracted. The only direct to consumer vendor allowed it to ship into Utah. They put out an RFP a few long stories short. They put out an RFP in January. And, but I've been talking to them for years. And they've now authorized it. And now we're working on the process. And this incredible opportunity for, for, so I broke my, my teeth in Utah. I have to grew up in Park City. We had a home in DeVon for the time that it opened. Well, this is my dad bought my parents bought in DeValley in 1983. DeValley opened in 1982. So I spent a lot of my youth there when I graduated from college. I was living in DeValley. I was working at, I worked at the Stein Arches in Lodge. It was my first job out of college. And then I wrote wine lists in Park City for a friend who had a couple different restaurants. And so I know Utah. That's right. Very well. Yeah. Yeah. So, incredible facilities. I toured their 100,000 square foot completely robotic distribution center, which is like amazing. Yeah. And watch, you know, Barton's vodka go by me as well as Opus go by me. Yeah. Just, just not really. Congratulations there. Yeah. It's going to be, it's going to be a fun thing. The reason is there is no three tier. There is no nothing. You don't have to register the brands. You don't have to go through, you don't have to worry about federal express return in the package. You don't have to worry about signatures required. None of that occurs in Utah because it goes to the store and the consumer picks it up. And they can't return it. There's no alcohol return. So that's an amazing thing. Even though they do take 88% and I can privately go over the numbers with you, but yeah, they get a percent of what they do. You know, when they do there, when they do there, they get their happy allocation like I used to get mine. And but you can because it's only 88% if you win the lottery and you win the right to buy papi, it's like, you know, like a hundred bucks, not even a hundred dollars. It's 88% of $69. And my my boyfriend and I we've been together for over 10 years, but he I met I was dating him actually in 96 when I moved to New York. He was a bartender in Park City for 20 plus years. And one of it we were telling a friend the other day, we're telling Ronin because we were in Napa together that one of the great things about Utah is that at the end of the when it when a new vintage comes in, they don't mark things up. No. So if you happen to be in the right place at the right time, you get shawomen deals on first growths and burgundies that people don't know about. So it can be kind of a trick. Maybe we should be telling people that. So let me just let me ask you a question about a recent theft. Then we'll have to wrap it up and they're going to come back. We're going to get heavy into the blockchain concept when we do this again. And we can do it next week or the week after whenever you want. There was a huge theft. In fact, that was in her most of each right hang out all the time. I was talking to the liquor store owner there and she's got interesting collections of wines. And she said, did you hear about the theft and vents? And they was just written up again. I guess this morning my daughter sent me an article. There's a video of the guy looking in the camera. So I think the wholesale value of the retail value was a hundred grand or $200,000. So $700,000. Okay. So let's say. So for one, that person doesn't know what he's stolen because it could be fraudulent. So let me tell you about it. Go ahead. So because the next morning I got a phone call from from these are the types of cases that I helped that I helped law enforcement with. And there's also a private investigator working on this. So I know a little bit about this case. So do you remember the French laundry case? Yes. That was one of 13,000 in the Bay Area. So there's a ring of people who are doing this and they did not get these guys went through the ceiling. And they dropped down and they have them on camera for three hours. Face timing with somebody showing them all the walls. Come on. Nope. Wow. So three hours they were in there. And somebody was directing them bottle by bottle what to steal. Now, you know, again, they said, you know, the I said first name, the guy's got, you know, get serial numbers, get in. Because a lot of it was burgundy. Unlike the people Wilson Daniels will know what serial numbers you have. So get that information. They're like, we're going to send a list to the auction house and I'm like, no, the wine's already been sold. The wine was sold probably before the theft occurred. And it's through these brokers who have their rich clients and they send a list and they say, this is what we've got. And then, you know, the wine gets sold. It never gets. It's never online. No, of course, it's never publicized. And this again, my blockchain solution will stop that. So it won't stop at all, but it will be able to recover those bottles. So that's interesting that that, but let's just say that there's these guys are stealing because the three tier system is broken. And I've had many, many people over the years bring me things. Yeah. Fortunately, couldn't use it the time that I would love to know what the provenance was. Right. You know, these guys could have stolen some fake DRC as well, though, right? Sure. But the guy, this is a wine shop, only a wine shop. Yeah. Still spirits. I don't know if he sold spirits, but, but I know that he did have a lot of direct allocations. I mean, he had the store for like 20 years. So if he had counterfeits that he, that he bought them on the gray market and he was duped. But this is exactly another three tier system is broken because those guys can so easily flip those ones. There is, there is no control. It's absolutely ridiculous. And in this country, the all the money goes to the lobbyists who care about not shipping to different states. They don't care about the actual crime and they need to open up their eyes because they're losing massive amounts of money. That governments are losing huge amounts of money and not paid taxes. Like we both live in California, stop raising my taxes, go after the crooks. Right. You know, but yeah, that theft, that that was amazing. I mean, they burrowed through the ceiling. Well, you know, I don't understand it because my father before he was in the wine business in the 70s, he had a chain of pharmacies. And that was the first thing you protected because they were stealing narcotics all the time. And he learned early on in 1959 or something that you got to protect the ceiling because that happened all the time. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. But you know, that's that's how they went into a lot of the restaurants in that in the, you know, break ins that went here to the other thing. That they had in common. All of these break ins happen on the night before a holiday closure so that there is going to be 24 hours before somebody's in the, in the space. Oh, that's interesting. Talk is the only successful theft in Vegas, which was many years ago was planned the day after the Super Bowl. Because of the money that would have been in the vault at the sports, the sports, the sports book. But I had a conversation with an executive of R and DC. And it fascinates me to have these conversations because when you're talking about breaking down prohibition and, you know, we, in the industry, you know, that's at odds with the Commerce clause and we've been trying to get the Supreme Court to look at and they won't. And yeah, and it's mainly because the WSW also is spirits of social America is very powerful. Like the NRA is and they're not going to let you break down. And let's face it, you know, the mob was in wine and liquor forever. I mean, maybe there still are in some cases, but it, you know, for the most part, it's just left over mob mob mentality that keeps us at bay this way. Just because it's alcohol, but it was a very, it's interesting thing to me when I had this conversation. I wanted to have the customers of the show here from somebody inside one of the. So completely different outlook on what goes on in the marketplace. The it is strictly driven by how much can I sell and when can I sell it? There's no romance of the industry. There's no romance of the alcohol. There's no romance of wine. There's none of that exists. It's either the background. The question is, how much shelter is going to get? What can I sell for? And what are they drinking? I could care less if they're drinking white claw, which is, you know, canned crap that the millenials think is great. And and not worry about the fine wine division because you know what? People are buying it right now. So it's not that important. It's a fascinating part of that industry that it's. Yeah, it's it's so that's a commodity. Yeah. And that's the. And that's what breaks my heart and that's why I go back to the producer and I want to find the solution that that enables the producer to protect their brand, protect their legacy, protect the product. You know, give them oversight, protect the end user and connect the end user and the producer directly. So I'm excited to tell you about that because it's really. When we do part two and I'll make sure I stay focused on that. What we can do as soon as you'd like. It goes, I mean, it's hard because it's such a fun topic. We're just going to get into that because I want to hear about it because I've always wondered about blockchain technology when it came to wine, you know, where it has its where it fits. And it sounds like you've got a key understanding of how that's going to help the consumer. And and the people to listen to the show are wine consumers and there's I get trade people on the show that will listen to it and I have consumers listen to it. I think this is a fascinating subject. It's been such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you. You tell. If you were low down those, which is sort of the southern part of the peninsula, right? Yeah, I'm in low south those cells. So I mean, one of the things that's interesting is that my father. This is the original Silicon Valley. My father's one of the original signers of the integrated circuit. Wow. It's kind of fun that, you know, that he was an inventor of an entrepreneur. I'm kind of fun. I'm sitting in his office right now. So. Would you fly in the San Jose to get there? Well, I live in Sol Solito. Oh, you do. Okay. And we have a home in Sonoma. So. But my mom still lives here. So I kind of fly. I mean, I drive back and forth. Well, I'll keep you posted the next time we're coming up. We usually fly to Oakland, but I'd be willing to fly into wherever to sit with you live with the microphones. I have a little portable studio I bring along. Yeah, no, no, the most fun. We'll do it up there. All of it up something yummy and real. In real. But now you got my interest in this like one of these. Well, I've probably tasted many fake wine, not knowing that they were bottled improperly, but. I tried to try to do business with, you know, reputable. Like we were in French Laundi once for dinner and I had a customer looking specifically for burgundy for a seller. And kind of I wonder how many fake ones are in his cell because he was one of those guys looking for a deal somewhere. Oh, yeah. And they brought. I told it. I told the guy my budget. I told him I wanted to grow on crew or premiere crew. If I could do it. I want to cook the new and he. He brought this wine and I rolled it over and it was an important San Francisco. And I've trusted them ever since. They've. [BLANK_AUDIO] Here's the difference. I'll just wrap it up with this. I did a real estate transaction here. It culminated and started and culminated on a glass of Grand Croube Burgundy. I forgot the region. It told me when that happened that how important a good glass of wine is. Good honest, and I think it's a great term now. I've been using it a lot. Honest glass of wine. It means two things now. It not only means that the wine maker was true to trying to put together the tarwhor of that wine based on what he or she was received, but now we're talking about your honesty. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's a crazy world. Do it, do it. Thank you. Again, Maureen for the time. Thank you. And I look forward to part two. I'll bring some counterfeit bottles for you to look at. That'd be so fun. Yeah. Good. We'll do it again.