Will the Real Mouton Please Stand Up?
Wine counterfeiting is a large and growing problem in the elite world of rare wine auctions, with phony bottles being sold at prices in the thousands of dollars. But do those who buy — and even drink — fake wine know the difference?
Food & Wine snuck a fake bottle of 1982 Ch. Mouton Rothschild (one of the most-faked bottles of all time) in to a wine tasting of people who’d all had real Mouton and “should” have known the difference. (What they were actually drinking? A 1995 blend of Cab and Merlot called Sorella from a Washington winemaker.)
A few said there was something wrong with it, a few enjoyed it a great deal. When the fraud was revealed, here’s what the tasters had to say.
The Collector guffawed. “You have got to be kidding!” He didn’t seem angry—or at least, not entirely. Glenn appeared amused, and Nikos seemed to be quite smug. He had known it didn’t taste like Mouton, he said. But The CFO looked decidedly unhappy. He was a man who knew Mouton, after all. I told them the whole story: How I’d bought a real bottle, sent it to Seattle and then created a replica with Chris. “I always thought Sorella was a very good wine, and I’ve always admired Chris Camarda,” Glenn said. “But I’m afraid of fraud; it’s why I don’t like to buy wine at auction.” The CFO said nothing but continued to look very cross. Then The Collector, to my amazement, shook his head. “It’s still my wine of the night,” he said.
Very interesting tale… read the whole thing here.
