Oeno-File

Regarding Wine Forgery, and the Wine World’s Main Whistle-Blower

She can identify fakes without even opening them.
She can identify fakes without even opening them. Photo: Michael Short/SF Weekly

Jesse Hirsch just penned a great cover piece for SF Weekly about Maureen Downey and her role as one of the country’s experts in identifying wine frauds at auctions. The sharp-tongued, brash Downey was quick to suspect Rudy Kurniawan, the wine forger who was ultimately arrested in March on suspicion of passing off (at least) $1.3 million in faked bottles as rare vintages. But many of the men she encountered in the “boy’s club” of the wine world dismissed her claims as raining on their parade. She had the last laugh when Kurniawan got arrested, and her alarm-calls over the years were instrumental in bringing him down. As for his talents, she admits he got “damn good” toward the end there, faking cork stamps and labels that could definitely evade detection. But she speaks of at least one other forger, a German named Hardy Rodenstock who was at work earlier in the last decade, calling some of his half-assed forgeries “absolutely retarded.” Still, she encouters them to this day. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘C’mon, dude, are you even trying?’” [SF Weekly, Earlier]

Regarding Wine Forgery, and the Wine World’s Main Whistle-Blower