Fake bottles in circulation

[Allan Engelsted Laurents]

Alert

First there was a truckloads of 1896 Niepoort Blue Ribbon, on sale in a Portuguese auctionhouse. All fake.

But 10 bottles (Niepoort, Kopke, Ferreira, RCV and Ribeiro) that I recieved this week are also fake.

Same wax, same Yellowstainted labels, the selo of garantia outside the head on the bottle, and Selo's on bottlngs before IVP used Selo's...and 2 by 2 same number of garantia on two different bottles... Here I show You a RCV 1815 (the same that was put on sale in this Forum some weeks ago) and a 1944 Ribeiro.

Had a Port aficionado over last night (and a Confraria do Vinho do Porto), he was absolutely sure, that they where fake.
We Cracked open one of the Niepoort 20YO alleged bottled in 1972.
The color was Rubyred, as a redwine, not Tawny Braun. And the taste was al chemical and undrinkable.

To make sure, that the Selo's are visible, the photo might be a little to Big..

Shame on people who makes fake Vinho do Porto.

[Andy Velebil]

Someone in Europe(??) is making older fake Ports in recent years. These are not the only ones I've seen in recent years.

(I'm moving this to the main Port forum where more people will see it)

[Eric Ifune]

Do all the false selos have similar numbers?
And you mentioned they all had the same wax capsules.
Thanks, but sorry for your purchase.

[Andy Velebil]

Hopefully you are able to return them for a refund and if so I hope whoever sold them destroys them.

[Allan Engelsted Laurents]

Over the Years, I have made some great bargains with the Auctionhouse. So I guess they will help me out, and others....
But some bottles have allready been scatterd around.

I noticed 2 bottles on sale in this Forum one Month ago.

And yesterday eBay had 2 bottles, one Niepoort Imperador and a bottle of 1944 Ribeiro. I wrote that guy a message, and 10 sec. later the bottles where taken off.
The glassbottles themselves are genuine. Everything else are fake...

But so extremely stupid, to scam an auctionhouse! It should be the easiest thing in the World to track the bad guys.

[Bradley Bogdan]

You would hope it would be easy to track them down, Allan, but historically there hasn't seemed to be much willpower from the middlemen (auction houses/distributors/brokers) to do any more than necessary to keep their own name clear. Hopefully your sources are more willing to help with whatever investigation may come of this.

Also, thank you for the heads up about the bottles.


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[Andy Velebil]

Allan
I've added this thread to the bottle listed for sale in the marketplace forum. Comparing the two bottles, they are identical, sans the different Selo #. But the wax, label, and bottle are identical. It appears to be from the same person who faked the one who have.

[Moses Botbol]

Are these refill's on old bottles?

[Al B.]

My first encounter with a fake port was in February 2008 when Moses, Sean, Andy, Julian, Roy and I opened a bottle of what was labelled as Croft 1933 vintage port. It was sealed with a T-stopper and had what appeared to be a photocopied sello under the plastic capsule. The bottle was an odd shape with a long slender neck and looked unlike anything I've ever seen port bottled in. The contents of the bottle were revolting, dark red in colour but stinking of black molasses and cabbage boiled to a pulp. Clearly not port in origin.

A very odd thing to fake and poorly done.

My next encounter with fake port was at the Christie's Geneva sale of November 2013 when Tom and I bought some old bottles that were being offered in a big sale of antiquarian wines. From what we were told, a French collector (someone closely associated with running a major wine chain in France) had decided to cash in some of his collection and was offering a large number of exceedingly interesting bottles. Tom and I were successful with a number of bids but when we saw the bottles several of them were clearly fake, and badly done - a Roriz 1908 sealed with a screw top, for example. Perhaps I am more cynical, but I don't think these lots were being offered by a vendor acting in good faith to raise some cash from his collection.

Christie's reaction was appalling. Apart from their catalogue quality being very poor and riddled with mistakes (colheita and vintage ports being used interchangeably), the person we first spoke to told us that these were probably rebottled wines, and that the port trade often rebottles vintage wines. When you get a member of the auction house's wine department telling you such nonsense you really know you are on shaky ground. (I believe that person ceased working for Christie's shortly after telling us this nonsense, when we simply went straight to the global Head of Wine sales based in London.) Eventually (after nearly 2 years) we did get our money back and a refund of the costs we incurred, but there has still been no public announcement of what happened or - as far as I am aware - any criminal investigation into the source of the fakes. It's my worry that the fake bottles which Tom, I and other knowledgeable buyers returned were given back to the vendor who found another route to make some money from his collection.

All I can suggest is that as well as being more cautious, please consider reporting this to the police. Selling fakes is illegal and while the police in Europe may be busy dealing with other more important matters, if enough people find and report enough fakes then a pattern might emerge which helps the police to find and stop the culprit.

[Andy Velebil]

Christie's has a documented history of, or simply putting their head in the sand, knowing they were selling fakes. The auction business for wine is more about making a profit than actually being honest and doing due diligence. There is a long thread that is worth the read. Really one only needs to skim it and read the posts from Don Cornwell and Maureen Downing, who helped the FBI in taking down Rudy K. as well as stopping a number of places from selling fake wines.

http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/vie ... =1&t=61172

The other is a post about a new upstart auction house based in Hong Kong. Both are worth at least a skim read to understand what some auction houses are doing and how their seller background information they spew about where the bottles came from are partial or sometimes complete fabrications.
http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/vie ... 1&t=121669

Again, I list these links solely to help protect our members. There are a lot of auction houses out there who only care about their interest not ours.

[Bradley Bogdan]

Very well put, both Al and Andy.
Just to toss in one more cent, there are some auction houses that try to hold themselves and their consigners to a higher standard. I'm not familiar enough with European auction houses to recommend any than you might be able to frequent, Allan, but I'm sure you might be able to garner suggestions from other members here. Not everyone has the same questionable ethics of Christies.


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[Moses Botbol]

Including a police report should be a mandate for anyone buying a fake bottle at auction. You have to make the incident "official".

[Al B.]

Very well put, both Al and Andy.
Just to toss in one more cent, there are some auction houses that try to hold themselves and their consigners to a higher standard. I'm not familiar enough with European auction houses to recommend any than you might be able to frequent, Allan, but I'm sure you might be able to garner suggestions from other members here. Not everyone has the same questionable ethics of Christies.

I want to be fair to Christies. I've bought from Christies in several locations: in London (both King Street and South Kensington), in New York, in Amsterdam and in Geneva.

Only in Geneva have I found the shoddy level I mention above of buyer care and due diligence on wine lots being offered for sale. I will and do quite happily buy from Christies in those other locations I mention - but never again in Geneva.

[Andy Velebil]

Very well put, both Al and Andy.
Just to toss in one more cent, there are some auction houses that try to hold themselves and their consigners to a higher standard. I'm not familiar enough with European auction houses to recommend any than you might be able to frequent, Allan, but I'm sure you might be able to garner suggestions from other members here. Not everyone has the same questionable ethics of Christies.

I want to be fair to Christies. I've bought from Christies in several locations: in London (both King Street and South Kensington), in New York, in Amsterdam and in Geneva.

Only in Geneva have I found the shoddy level I mention above of buyer care and due diligence on wine lots being offered for sale. I will and do quite happily buy from Christies in those other locations I mention - but never again in Geneva.

Alex,
Read Don's posts in the link I've posted and you will get a different view. (Skip all the other posts to save yourself a ton of time)

While I still buy at auction I am as careful as one can be when buying now. I don't believe anything they say about provenance unless I can see the documents in person.

(edit)
Alex,
here's a Quote from Don in that thread I listed...

I said that I didn’t intend to wait because we were only four days away from the sale and I related that when Rudy had last auctioned wines with Christies in October and November of 2009 several of us had confronted Christies with the information and documentation that we had put together concerning that sale, and demanded that they stop the sale of Rudy’s wines, but that Christies had stalled and stalled and then told everyone late the day before the scheduled sale that they had elected to proceed. By that point it was too late to get a warning out to people.

[Allan Engelsted Laurents]

Thanks guys for Your support.

I am not a novice buying Port, so I knew this could happen, but I got cheated! The auctionhouse had some poor pictures of the Ports, so I only focused on the labels, and the standing in the neck.

I have bought more than 150 bottles from the particulary auctionhouse, so I trust them to help me (and themselves) out.

I just dont get it? 3 of my Ports - Niepoort 20YO bottled n 1972 - why would anybody go through so much work to counterfeit a Wine, that I easily Can find in Portugal for € 60-80?

Well, no Waterloo Wine for me this time.

[Roy Hersh]

The irony is not lost on me, when I think back to several early threads here on where some posters used to be all warm and fuzzy about buying Port at auction and pushing back when I'd warn our participants about the care and questions required when buying wine (Port) at auction. I remember threads like, (paraphrasing here) 'would you pay a premium for ex-cellars bottles of Port?' and others re: the mixed quality of provenance found when buying Ports at auction. That doesn't mean I'd run away and never buy from an auction house anymore, but "caveat emptor" has always applied when purchasing from any auction house ... big name or otherwise. Christie's and obviously Acker have been consistent culprits (hopefully not complicit) in being taken advantage of ... or turning their heads, when it comes to fake wines being sold.

While fakes are more prominent (for Port) nowadays than they had been even a half decade ago, in the old days, it was typically the very high end Vintage Ports (e.g. Nacional) that were being "replicated" using re-filled bottles with new corks and often times waxed capsules. Anyway, it is quite sad that Port has now become such a target, as for many years, it just wasn't worth faking Ports due to their relatively low prices vs. other collectible wines such as Claret and Burgundy.

[Andy Velebil]

The irony is not lost on me, when I think back to several early threads here on where some posters used to be all warm and fuzzy about buying Port at auction and pushing back when I'd warn our participants about the care and questions required when buying wine (Port) at auction. I remember threads like, (paraphrasing here) 'would you pay a premium for ex-cellars bottles of Port?' and others re: the mixed quality of provenance found when buying Ports at auction. That doesn't mean I'd run away and never buy from an auction house anymore, but "caveat emptor" has always applied when purchasing from any auction house ... big name or otherwise. Christie's and obviously Acker have been consistent culprits (hopefully not complicit) in being taken advantage of ... or turning their heads, when it comes to fake wines being sold.

While fakes are more prominent (for Port) nowadays than they had been even a half decade ago, in the old days, it was typically the very high end Vintage Ports (e.g. Nacional) that were being "replicated" using re-filled bottles with new corks and often times waxed capsules. Anyway, it is quite sad that Port has now become such a target, as for many years, it just wasn't worth faking Ports due to their relatively low prices vs. other collectible wines such as Claret and Burgundy.

But the other problem is retailers regularly buy from auctions too, then sell them to you and I as if they acquired them from direct sources or private cellars with "proven provenance." So even at retail now one has to be very vigilant.

[Roy Hersh]

Agreed, Andy. Especially true for older bottles. There are questions that should always be asked when purchasing Port (beyond some basic bottles), regardless of whether at a brick and mortar wine shop, online retailer or auction house.

[Allan Engelsted Laurents]

The Portuguese auctionhouse phoned me last night. I am getting a total refund, so All my expenses will be covered.

Still, I would rather be the happy owner of 10 beautiful bottles of Vinho do Porto.

But okay! I learned a lesson! And I will be more carefull buying at auctions.

Allan

[Nuno Nunes]

Hello everyone!

First of all, thank you very much for the alert Allan.

I put a bottle in the forum looking for potential buyers a couple of months ago, which i bought at an auction.

Whem the alarm was fired, i dindn't have the bottles im my hand's but already paid the bottles...I lifted up some batches from the auctionhoude, in the middle of the past month.

But i was on full aler,t since the developments described in the forum. So i place my doubts concerning the authenticity whith the auctioneer. The actionhouse was available to a assume the bottles, and creat a checking account whit the amount of the acquisition-related costs.

I have rejected the idea. I've told them that I have lost confidence whith them. So, i whant my money back not a credit.
I was told that, in order to get my money back i needed to display overwhelming proofs of my statement.

So in the past day's i contacted the RCV tecnical departement and explained my doubts, and what was hapening in the market whit their name and produts.
The RCV chairman, Drº Pedro Silva Reis, was very sensible to the mater, and a few days later replyed to me. So he invited me to take the bottles to the laboratory and tasting room, of RC Vwhere we opened the bottles and concluded that its content not even come close to port wine, even harmful to health!
The seals of mine bottles have ben purchased by Croft in 1966 and 1971. New cork and wax, no deposit in the bottle.
The very RCV plans to take legal action upon these counterfeiters.

RCV report

IMG.jpg (2.22 MiB) Viewed 4072 times

After some research work, I discovered that the forger have puted in the same auction some others bottles such as:

Wiese & Krohn, Reserva Particular 1900
Companhia Vinícola do Norte de Portugal, Garrafeira Reserva 1916
Niepoort's Blue Ribbon "Port of the 1896 Vintage"
Real Companhia Velha, Novidade de 1815
Burmester, Vintage 1960
Ferreirinha, Dona Antonia A Ferreira, 87
Borges, Vintage 1958, 1960
Niepoort, Imperador
Kopkes 300 years 1638-1938
Cálem, 1948
Constantinos, Vintage 1950, 1960
Niepoort, Vintage 1952
Corrêa Ribeiro, Filhos Lda, Vintage 1944

Take a special care when any of those names appear in the market. If anyone need help whit fotos of the labels on the bottles, just send me a message.

To conclude, I should't have posted in the FTOP these bottle, "Please Administrators of the forum, delete the post, (rarities...200 years Port bottle), in the (Port & Madeira Marketplace)" I should had first checked the authenticity of the bottles.

My apologies to everyone in this fantastic community

Have a nice 2016, fully completed whit great Portuguese wines!!
**Please forgive my bad English**
Nuno Nunes - Portugal