How an illegal immigrant pulled off the greatest wine scam in US history
By Peter Hellman
October 7, 2017 | 12:53pm | Updated
Before Rudy Kurniawan was 30, he had risen to become a kingpin purveyor of wines that were the rarest of the rare. Then, one Friday evening in 2008, he made a mistake that shattered his career.
It happened at a wine auction held at Greenwich Village restaurant Cru, a hangout for deep-pocketed winolas (shuttered in 2010). Auctioneer Acker Merrall & Condit’s catalog listed 22 lots of red wine from Domaine Ponsot, a Burgundy producer adored by collectors. Six of those lots were touted as Clos Saint-Denis, one of the 32 greatest Burgundy appellations. They were being offered in vintages 1945 to l971, all mythic vintages in the region. Their estimated prices reached an eye-popping $70,000 per case. All had been consigned from what Kurniawan called his “magic cellar.”
http://nypost.com/2017/10/07/how-an-illegal-immigrant-pulled-off-the-greatest-wine-scam-in-us-history/
