In Vino Duplicitas Lib/E: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire

by Peter Hellman, Charles Constant (Reading)

Few gain entry to the privileged world of ultrafine wines, where billionaires flock to exclusive auction houses to vie for the scarce surviving bottles from truly legendary years. But Rudy Kurniawan, an unknown twentysomething from Indonesia, was blessed with two gifts that opened doors: a virtuoso palate for wine tasting, and access to a seemingly limitless (if mysterious) supply of the world's most coveted wines. After bursting onto the scene in 2002, Kurniawan quickly became the leading purveyor of rare wines to the American elite. But in April 2008, his lots of Domaine Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis red burgundy--dating as far back as 1945--were abruptly pulled from auction. The problem? The winemaker was certain that this particular burgundy was first produced only in 1982. Journalist Peter Hellman was there, and he would closely investigate as a singular cast of characters--including a Kansas-born billionaire, a wine-loving young prosecutor, and a crusty FBI agent--worked to unravel the biggest con in wine history. Whether driven by the love of wine or of justice, all were asking the same question: Was the mild-mannered Kurniawan himself a dupe? Or had one young man--with little experience and few connections--ensnared the world's top winemakers, sellers, and drinkers in a web of deceit?

Genres: Nonfiction, Wine, True Crime, Food, Audiobook, Biography, Crime

Audio CD

First published July 31, 2017

Reviews

[Annie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A truly fascinating story, amazing material here, but the book itself was only okay. I strongly recommend the Netflix documentary Sour Grapes which is about the same person, Rudy Kurniawan, but was much more effective and engaging at delivering the information (and, for that matter, is one of the most fascinating docos I've seen in a long time).

[Randal White · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hellman has written a book about one of the greatest wine frauds to have ever taken place. Rudy Kurniawan was a young man who misrepresented himself as a seller of extremely rare wines. Unfortunately, it was found that he was a total fraud.
This episode was covered much better, and more succinctly, in the October 14th, 2016 issue of the New Yorker by Bianca Bosker. I found very little new or interesting information in this book. It appears that the author was "scooped".

[Billie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goodreads just ate my review, so here's the short version.

This could have been really good—the crime and the characters are interesting—but Hellman didn't really explore the events of the characters in enough depth and his prose was flat. There were several paragraphs and passages that were repeated almost verbatim in different chapters, as if the author was attempting to "pad out" his manuscript. Save your time and wait for a better book on these events. Or just go back and read the multitude of magazine articles already written about this fraud.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Available as an 8.5-hour audio download.

Like that third glass of wine at dinner, a second consecutive audiobook about dopey rich people being fooled by a wine fraudster did not quite achieve the anticipated level of satisfaction. It's not the fault of the audiobook – it was just too much of a good thing. I recommend spacing out the consumption of both good wine and good audiobooks to maximize pleasaure.

The first audiobook on this topic was shorter, but mostly because the crimes of this book's subject, Rudy Kurniawan, are so colossal, and their subsequent court-generated documentation is so thorough, that the previous fraudster, Hardy Rodenstock, is nearly invisible in shade of Kurniawan's, uh, achievement, if that's the word I'm looking for.

This book goes into very thorough detail at the end about how Kurniawan did it, which is the interesting bit for me, but first you have to slog through a blizzard of similar-sounding vineyards and vintages, mixed with an impressive list of (again, similar-sounding) people who felt themselves the smartest people in the room but were nevertheless fleeced by a seemingly aimless Chinese-Indonesian barely out of his teens.

The author hints broadly that Kurniawan took the rap for confederates, as certain parts of the deception required cooperation from parties outside the US.

Recent developments: In November 2020, Kurniawan completed a seven-year sentence in an particularly unpleasant (i.e., accusations of sexual abuse of prisoners, COVID outbreak) for-profit prison in Texas (per interesting article here). As of March 2021, he is being held in a detention facility in New Mexico, pending deportation (per article here).

UPDATE: Shortly after posting this review, Rudy Kurniawan was deported.

It's interesting that he didn't (or couldn't) get released earlier, given that his fraud did not result in anybody's death and no penniless widows were fleeced. Many people who did a lot more damage did a lot less time in prison. On the other hand, other people didn't owe billionaire collector Bill Koch three million dollars in court judgments.

[Tian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took super fascinating real-life source material about a talented and charming con-man ripping off a world of ultra-wealthy conceited "connoisseurs" and completely squandered it's potential.

The first half of the book tells about Rudy's rise in the wine world, but instead of telling the story chronologically, it is told character-by-character, jumping across time. This explains the different roles in world of wine auctions, but leaves out how Rudy grew in fame. Several events are revisited from different perspectives, but in completely disparate sections of the book, which felt redundant and disorienting, without the Rashomon-style intrigue.

Perhaps, I am biased, but the author seems oblivious to how unsympathetic Rudy's "victims" are and omits too any criticism for them. Bill Koch is a hero who is willing to spend millions of dollars on lawsuits because he has been conned on the provenance of a Jefferson wine. The same Koch as Koch Industries, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars conning the American people about the realities of climate change. Rudy went to jail for 10 years for conning a few million from plutocrats who could afford it, while around the same time only one person from Wall Street went to jail for conning Americans into take mortgages they could not afford. Ultimately, it seems like the author is part of the club of high-net-worth oenophiles and therefore reluctant to criticize.

Lastly, I think everyone who picks up this book is most interested in hearing how Rudy did it. Unfortunately, due to a lack of access to Rudy himself, those details are scant.

[Kam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now, for all that this book has its compelling moments (whether the reader is going into it for the schadenfreude, the education, or out of sheer curiosity), I do have one particular issue with it: the overall narrative flow. The author is primarily a writer of magazine articles, which are often short and snappy, and so is perhaps more used to working in the kind of short, snappy narrative timeframe often preferred for magazine writing. I think this has affected the overall flow of the book, resulting in a disjointed narrative that jumps from topic to topic and narrator to narrator without much thought for how the story flows from one point to another. It would have been better for the author to simply compile all the articles he wrote while covering the Rudy Kurniawan story, and then publish them as a single collection, instead of restructuring the whole thing into one continuous narrative. In fact, readers might prefer to simply read the articles themselves. Fortunately, they are available to read online, though it may take some sifting through the author’s index to find the relevant articles. Still, it might be a better alternative to reading the book.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-Fn

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full review to come!

[Kaesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the friend who recommended this to me pointed out, wine forgery is a great genre of crime to focus on for entertaining true crime, because all the victims are incredibly wealthy and will almost certainly be fine. I did feel a bit bad for the vintners, but I imagine it's a bit like finding out someone plagiarized your writing? So it sucks, but they'll be fine. And for various reasons I am constitutionally incapable of feeling sorry for Bill Koch, who has bought *so* many fake antique things that he just wants to talk about constantly on the stand during a wine trial. Anyway, this was entertainingly written, but a little dense with Wine Thoughts for someone who can basically taste the difference between the two objective categories of wine that exist in the world: 1. very sweet white wine that I like; 2. everything other than that.

[Joshua Rief · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard book for me to review. Parts of it are brilliant, much of it is quite well written, and the story itself is nothing short of fascinating. However, Hellman, though obviously a gifted writer and journalist, seems to lose himself over and over again in a sort of aged wine euphoria. Waxing poetic about this vintage and that domaine repeatedly makes the narrative challenging to follow and denser than it needs to be. It's already a short book, so I suppose cutting down on the wine genuflection would make it shorter still. Oddly enough, Hellman truly hits his finest stride at the end, with comparisons between the protagonist and Fitzgerald's Gatsby along with a story about his own quest to visit said protagonist in prison. If you're a real wine buff, you'll undoubtedly eat this book up - you are the intended audience, I would say. Otherwise, worth a read, but prepare to skim a bit.

[Dayna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had the potential to be an incredibly exciting read: a crime targeting the rich who have the means to fight back. It dropped a lot of names yet still felt as if it had omitted many other victims & investigators. It did provide the type of minute details that I enjoy (e.g. horizontally vs vertically stamped corks, idiosyncrasies on the labels) learning about. I would have liked an appendix listing the vintners, suspected wines & suspected number of fake bottles; perhaps in the next edition. The writing felt a bit repetitive, though that may have been due to the nature of the crime.

I received a copy from the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

The underlying story here is fascinating: a master manipulator fleeces wealthy sophisticates out of millions of dollars while fueling their oenophilic fantasies. Unfortunately, the author's narrative account of this intriguing tale is disappointing, choppy and thin. Still, the book offers an interesting glimpse into a rarified, and odd, world populated by obsessive wine collectors and consumers whose dreams of Burgundy and Bordeaux glory ultimately led to disastrous results. Makes me content to stick with the $10 and under wines on offer at Trader Joe's, with the (very) occasional splurge on something in the $30- $50 range. Caveat emptor!

[Roger P · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nicely written non-fiction account of Rudy Kurnowian, who initially appeared to be a wine savant and was welcomed into the high brow world of expensive wine tasting/selling, but turned out to be pasting fake labels and making fake corks to pass off very very expensive wines. It is an exposition of greed and of how some wine “experts” can be fooled into giving rave descriptions of a wine that is really quite ordinary.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found a couple of typos in the book. I did not know anything about the high end wine culture. This was eye opening.

I won this book as part of goodreads giveaway program. I will donate it to my local library.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was given this book by a friend who is studying to become a sommelier, and so I feel certain that a lot of it registered more with her than it did with me. Nonetheless, this is a fascinating true story.

Rudy Kurniawan is a young man from Indonesia who suddenly appears on the scene of those people most interested in wines of the finest vintages, both to drink and to collect. Even to those who become part of his inner circle, he is a somewhat mysterious character. But his palate for tasting the best wines is remarkable, and soon he is considered one of the experts in the world on vintages.

However, things start to fall apart when an auction house pulls a group of wines from offering because something doesn't seem right. And a few other people start to notice tiny little details about labels, winery names, etc. Soon the FBI is involved, and the first case of wine fraud in the U.S. is underway.

Now I love wine, but know nothing about it and have no interest in it as a collector. I daresay I have even been known to drink and enjoy box wine. So a lot of the details in the story were well beyond my interest or comprehension, but it was a fascinating story of someone who fooled so many people for so long by mixing lesser wines with the original vintages, re-using bottles, and having labels printed that were nearly perfect duplicates for the originals. And from what the book tells us, he did a lot of this in the kitchen of his home in California.

So although I'm sure I missed the grand overview of duplicity and impostor-ism involved in the story, what it boiled down to was a bunch of rich people being fooled completely by a con man. Even one of the Koch brothers was duped, which I have to say pleased me in my own twisted way.

It's a good read - full of details that I admittedly glossed over, but a really interesting story of how one person fooled so many so completely for so long. I'm passing this book along to my brother-in-law, who is much more of a wine snob than I am, and an attorney to boot. I think he is likely to appreciate all aspects of the book more than I did.

[January Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I first saw this story on American Greed, and this gave a more detailed description of the story. I will probably read this again in the future.

[Alicia Helbeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish this book tied the facts with the story better. Everything felt very straightforward and dry.

[Bill Marsano · Rating 3 out of 5]

REV VinoDuplicitas

By Bill Marsano, from a pre-publication copy. This smugly titled book naturally stands beside Benjamin Wallace’s excellent and often funny 2008 “The Billionaire’s Vinegar”: both cover top-dollar wine frauds that occurred within a few years of each other. Wallace told of con artist Meinhard Görke, a Polish promoter of doomed rock bands who re-christened himself Hardy Rodenstock and came out of the blue trailing an unlimited supply of extremely rare and ultra-famous French wines—the kind the drive collectors mad. And stupid. He sold them without letup and at enormous prices, duping rich folks by inviting them to fancy parties and winning their trust. When the wines were exposed as fakes? Headlines, scandal, derision of the suckers, lawsuits, yada-yada. So, did anyone learn anything? Apparently not. Early in this century an Indonesian illegal immigrant in L.A., one Zhen Wang Huang, decided that once was not enough. Author Peter Hellman recounts his doings:: Zeng styles himself Rudy Kurniawan, invites rich wine collectors with more money than brains to his insanely lavish dinners, and once they are all pals and chums, proceeds to gull, dupe, bamboozle or, we may say, rodenstock them into buying a tsunami of fake wine for a similar amount of money. Talking millions here, OK? Few of the victims see or want to see the red flags or want to ask obvious questions such as “How come I never heard of this guy before?”; “Does he really come from an obscenely rich Indonesian family that provides him with an allowance of $1 million a month to look after his Mom?”; “How did he manage to just show up and buy the greatest wine cellar in world history?”; “How come he can never explain anything?”; and “Why don’t I just make an offer for the Brooklyn Bridge instead?” It’s a guilty pleasure—but delightful nevertheless—to look on as self-regarding arrivistes and new-money vulgarians make fools of themselves because they’re simply unable to believe that a guy they party with isn’t on the up-and-up. Alone among the victims, billionaire wine collector Bill Koch sic’d the law on Kurniawan as he had years before on Rodenstock, and here the tale begins to come alive. (Others held back, fearing embarrassing publicity; one was even afraid his wife would find out.) Be warned: this is no “action” story. No excitement, no thrills—just relentless digging through e-mails, auction catalogues and old wine lists. There are a couple of pleasing anecdotes, my favorite being the sucker who tried to avoid exposure by having himself smuggled out of his house in the trunk of his car. (Unluckily for him, Hellman names names, and a couple of auction houses, too). No, this is a “police procedural.” That’s what crime novelists call the step-by-step blood-hound work of dogged detectives and amateur sleuths seeking forensic evidence: wrong-color labels; anachronistic labels; labels printed in Indonesia for wines made in Kurniawan’s kitchen; labels printed on both sides or citing non-existent vineyards or vintages; errant accent marks; corks too short or branded with two vintages or none at all; bottles that producers say they never made. Fascinating stuff, and more fun than fisticuffs any day. The writing is no more than workmanlike (so long as you slide over the occasional cliches steer clear of the opening Author’s Note and the Introduction), and that’s fine: a crime story needs not poetry but, as Sgt. Joe Friday never actually said, "just the facts, ma'am.” In the end, after an excellent courtroom scene. Kurniawan is sentenced to a decade in the Big House. Today? Kurniawan is still locked up but any number of Kurniawan (and Rodenstock) fakes are still at large. Might some of them find their way onto the auction market some day if the dupes try to recoup their losses? Knowing human nature as you do, you have to ask yourself “What are the odds?” (Want more true wine crime? Amazon also has Frances Dinkelspiel’s “Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California,” the story of the 2005 fire that destroyed some 4.5 million bottles of California’s finest wines.) —Bill Marsano is along-time wine writer and an even longer-time editor and freelance.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

In theory, I should have loved this book. I love a glass of wine; I love true crime. However, in practice, this book fell short. It took me 8 months to finish this book; I would leave it for weeks and then force myself to go back to it. After starting the book and realizing that it originated in a series of articles for Wine Spectator, I see where the problem lies. While I love a glass of wine, I am not a collector by any means. Every time the author mentioned another vintage, my eyes would glass over because I had no frame of reference for these. If the year was 1982 or 1891, it made very little difference to me and the names of French vineyards all run together. It felt like name-dropping and not in a good way. For those who are avid students and collectors of wine, these details may enhance the story, but for me, it was a distraction. There was very little character development and the plot was also slow and dry. Wine is really the central star here, and if you haven't studied your vineyards and vintages, you will probably find yourself skipping over details much like I did.

[Maveric Searle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The actual story here is fascinating and overall I enjoyed the parts of the book that actually discussed Rudy Kurniawan’s repeated frauds. Unfortunately a significant portion of the book was devoted to overly flowery discussions of one particularly rare vintage after another. As somebody who cannot, and does not aspire to, understand the differences between a 1942 and a 1943 La Tache, these deviations largely felt like an attempt to lengthen the author’s story enough to justify printing it as a (still quite short) book in addition to the articles he wrote on the same subject. Overall I think the author’s and others’ reporting, as well as the documentary on Kurniawan, serve as better vehicles for this particular story.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engrossing story about a young Asian man who forged wines so well he duped big-time wine collectors out of tens of millions of dollars.

The story is fascinating not only because of the expertise and deception required to pull off such a feat, but also because of the psychological manipulation required to carry out the con on so many wealthy and intelligent people for so long.

At the same time, we get a front row seat at wine auctions, French wineries, and tastings... and learn more than the average person will ever know about fine wine. Perfect book for wine lovers or anybody who enjoys witnessing a con man at the height of his game.

[Sanford Chee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bianca Bosker, New Yorker Oct 2016
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cul...

Sour Grapes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_Gr...

1945 Mouton Rothchild
Bdx beauty made for the long haul after a hot and dry summer when 🇫🇷 was stretched thin from war and occupation. Baron Philippe de Rothschild, proprietor of Mouton, had fled to London while the Germans inhabited his château and returned only as the grapes were ripening that year.
"The power and spiciness surges out of the glass like a sudden eruption of Mount Etna." -Michael Broadbent
Check out this 1945 Mouton. I scanned it with the @Vivino app: https://www.vivino.com/wines/3662574

1914 “vintage, harvested mainly by women and children. Most able-bodied men had gone off to the nearby battlefront to defend against the invading Germans. That October, the thunder of artillery could be heard as the grapes were picked. A lifetime later, the tasters in the cellar contemplated this still-alive champagne made in the early days of the Great War. "For this, there were no words. Only the tears of grown men.”
This champagne was weightless yet vivacious, more spirit than flesh. I didn’t shed tears, but I did try to imagine the lives of the women and children who made the wine while their fathers, husbands, and sons endured the front, hoping to stay alive while defending the home soil, its dips and rises covered with vines. And because of that old bubbly, I felt in the back of my mind, or maybe in my heart, an awareness of my own parents.
Check out this 1914 Pol Roger. I scanned it with the @Vivino app: https://www.vivino.com/wines/21150064

Peter Hellman seminal wine tried at Clive Davis, President Columbia Records, NYE party @Tryall Jamaica 1959//1945 as Bdx legend. “They seduced every private place in my mouth.”
Check out this 1959 Mouton. I scanned it with the @Vivino app: https://www.vivino.com/wines/6048054

Rudy Kurniawan seminal wine 1996 Opus One
Check out this wine. I scanned it with the @Vivino app: https://www.vivino.com/wines/3452543

In blind tastings even a Mondavi Woodbridge merlot can be mistaken for a Petrus
Check out this wine. I just scanned it with the Vivino app. https://www.vivino.com/wines/2757524?...

Rudy Kurniawan recipe for Burgundies eg DRC
2008 Marcassin Pinot Noir & Aubert PN (possibly Reuling/UV-SL vineyards)
Check out this Marcassin. I scanned it with the @Vivino app: https://www.vivino.com/wines/1355915
Check out this Aubert Reuling Vineyards PN. I scanned it with the @Vivino app: https://www.vivino.com/wines/142744872
Check out this Aubert UV-SL Vineyards PN. I scanned it with the @Vivino app: https://www.vivino.com/wines/8676732

https://www.vinography.com/wp-content...

Rudy Kurniawan recipe for Bdx eg Lafleur, Petrus
1974 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard cabernet sauvignon
Check out this Heitz Martha’s Vineyard cab sauv. I scanned it with the @Vivino app: https://www.vivino.com/wines/1488542
2003 Blankeit Estate Merlot (according to Grok: The 2003 Blankiet Estate Merlot is less commonly cited but appears in WineBerserkers discussions as an “obscure” yet plausible choice for Kurniawan’s Pomerol counterfeits. Blankiet, a Napa Valley producer, makes a Merlot-heavy wine (Paradise Hills Vineyard) with plush, velvety fruit, which could mimic the softer, rounder qualities of Pomerol. A user in the thread speculated that Kurniawan’s use of “lesser-known Merlots” like Blankiet in 2003—a ripe vintage—might have provided the fruit intensity needed to doctor older wines, aligning with evidence of Liberty Bay Merlot (another American Merlot) found in his cellar.)

Don_Cornwell post on Wine Beserkers
https://www.wineberserkers.com/t/rudy...

https://www.wineberserkers.com/t/rudy...

Aubert de Villaine treated prosecutor DA Hernandez to 1990 La Tache: it was ethereal
Check out this wine. I just scanned it with the Vivino app. https://www.vivino.com/wines/1382345?...

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

A not quite successful "blend" (to use a wine word) of wine writing and true crime writing. And the wine writing definitely won out. The book is full of stories of epic wine tastings, deep-pocketed collectors, and the obligatory references to French domaines and terroirs . It's clear that the author loves wine and the whole wine world, and would much rather describe the taste and aroma of a fine vintage than sleuth around the murky origins of the villain of the piece, young Rudy Kurniawan. The book follows him from his appearance on the international wine scene, through years of buying and selling and offering and tasting wine, to his downfall on charges of producing counterfeit wines in his kitchen workshop.

I read the book because I was curious as to what a wine forger is and what they do. Well, apparently it's procuring empty old bottles, pouring in an inferior wine, and then putting on forged labels and corks, seal and wax, and passing them on as a superior vintage, worthy of high prices. I would have liked to be able to connect the dots better on how Rudy was found out, but I felt the story was told in a very non-linear way, constantly introducing new characters who might have done a tasting with Rudy, bought from Rudy, sold to Rudy, met with Rudy, partied with Rudy. It seems that the unraveling of Rudy's web of deceit really began when Laurent Ponsot, scion of a French wine-making family, flew to New York to inspect some bottles supposedly from his vineyard, realized they were fake, and had them pulled from an auction. But what happened afterwards was confused to me, up until Rudy's arrest and trial.

There are plenty of entertaining moments, in a sort of can-you-believe-it way. People spending millions of dollars on wine, dinners with dozens of bottles opened... it's a way of living that is mildly interesting to read about.

[Matthew Bolin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

This book was a quick and engaging read and unlike a lot of other reviewers, I quite liked how the various chapter sections would ping pong between moments of the main timeline, intercut as well by historical background that filled in info on the various characters and the wines themselves.

However, the book ended up leaving me unsatisfied for two main reasons. The first is there really are no characters one can attach themselves to, which reduces a reader’s connection to the book. Beyond the wine forger, this book is filled with narcissists, sociopaths, and various people who championed themselves as special for little reason other than their access to both expensive wine, and the money necessary to purchase it. Even the main winemaker whose family label is repeatedly forged, and is written to appear as a moral center of the book, ends up having a falling out with his siblings and leaving their winery.

The second is there is no real resolution as to why the main character became a wine forger to begin with. There are possibilities brought up in an addendum after the last chapter, but no definitive confirmation, as the author is unable to get an interview with the main subject or anyone in his family. One of the main reasons I read books involving true crime is to find out the psychology and motivation behind the criminal—to get answers as to what makes a person behave in such ways. In the end, this book teases reasons why, but leaves solid conclusions unfulfilled, which was quite disappointing, and left my reaction when the book was finished more negative than what I felt when I was reading much of it.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

**I received an advanced reader’s copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

Hellman chronicles the story of Rudy Kurniawan, a young wine connoisseur whose practices and wine dealings/transactions may not be one hundred percent reliable. A journalist with articles found in Wine Spectator, Hellman interviews a cast of characters who interacted with Kurniawan. Along the way, Hellman takes readers on a history lesson of rare wines.

Parts of Hellman’s nonfiction narrative were fascinating – details from interviews and trials, as well as remarks made by people who knew Kurniawan. At other times, the narrative was slow. The writing style has a journalistic flair; not a criticism, but a style that took some time to follow. This is also a very current topic in the wine world, with litigations and repercussions still being felt among collectors and auction houses. I was unfamiliar with the case prior to this book, so it was very insightful. I cannot attest to any additional information covered in this book that had been covered in news articles or other accounts of events that took place.

Overall, it was an interesting introductory look at a man who really made the wine world think about provenance and authenticity, as well as the basic principles of truth and justice.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book.

I didn't know what to expect when I started reading it but I found it to be a really interesting read. It's literally a highly detailed overview of the case, the background surrounding the case, and the main players' roles within it. There's also a really interesting after-thought about what has happened since.

I can understand why some people might think it's "too much"; but I personally found it fascinating.

There is a part of the book where the author wrote about Rudy Kurniawan being similar to the character Gatsby; and I can understand why he said that.

Honestly; I think they both just wanted to be accepted. I feel like if both Gatsby and Rudy had chosen other paths they would have been successful, but it's always easy to look back in hindsight, right?

Plus, as the book mentioned; we will never know the "real" story; or the "real" man at the centre of it.

Unless Rudy sits down and tells everyoe why he did it, we have to assume that he was simply a money hungry sociopath that didn't care who he defrauded as long as he made an extra buck.

Was he laundering money? Did he want to simply fit in with a certain crowd? Was he in too deep and basically realized there was no way out so kept going? We'll never really know; but this book certainly does a great job of trying to figure it out.

Well worth the read!

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first heard of the case of Rudy Kirniawan and his fraudulent wines on one of those true crime shows on the major network. Like Hellman, I was intrigued! That's where our shared opinions end. He starts out insulting those of us who enjoy 'fruit bombs' as he calls them - the table wine readily available throughout the US. Okay, I enjoy a fruity glass of wine, but aren't we always told to drink what we like? Then, we hear about preparing for the trial. One of the deep pocketed individuals who was conned, was Bill Koch. What I knew about Koch prior to this book was that is a known donor to conservative causes and was involved in America's Cup (sailing races). Clearly Hellman HATES Koch. Is it the money? Is it the three degrees from M.I.T.? Is it the wine cellar? I'm pretty sure it is the politics. Once an author's bias shows to this degree, I become very disappointed. Koch is one of the heroes of this story. Rudy Kurniawan is the villian. Hellman treats Kurniawan as some sort of Robin Hood - his theft from the rich didn't hurt anyone except snobs. His lies hurt anyone that wants to purchase a special bottle of wine. That's the real fact.

[Ally L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

In-depth book on an interesting subject. However, its depth was its own undoing. The book was very detailed on the aspects and ramifications of the crime, but I could have done without the seemingly-endless listing of wines and vintages. I understand attention to detail, and this would have worked if the target audience was solely wine experts.

Watching Sour Grapes after reading the book was good to give faces to the names that appeared in the book, but the docu didn't go into enough detail compared to the book. The author could have been edited down to create a more streamlined narrative. I did not need to know about Bill Koch's art collection on his lawn, to understand that he's a billionaire who spent a lot on wine. The book was told from multiple different points of view in each chapter, but the timeline ended up overlapping. One positive was it told the events in a new light each time. A negative was that the author refers to "the '06 auction where the '45 DRC vintage was sold for $2m." It felt like reading someone else's shorthand, instead of a story.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Vino Duplicitas.
In Vino Veritas means "in wine there is truth". So, In Vino Duplicitas would loosely translate into "in wine, there is duplicity".
This is the accounting of the rise and fall of the wine forger Rudy Kurniawan. A man who, at one time may have been called wine savant, and who ended up serving time for his crimes.
While this is a fascinating accounting, the book itself lacks a somewhat in that department. A bit herky jerky, told out of order, and sometimes repeating information already covered.
While Rudy goes from fabulous to fake, to "Frankenstein Wines",
from marvelous to monstrous, his actions of a crafty and creative criminal.
As for the book, it went from fascinating and factual, and although its not a long book, it was indeed far too long to read the author's wandering and repetitive narrative.
I expected a "fine wine" of a book and feel like I got a bottle that was slightly "corked".

[Leo Alvarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is clearly a fan-boy of his subject, and also a very good writer. Which makes it easy to understand why he feels so much compassion for all the people Kurniawan 'duped' and Kurniawan himself, in a very twisted way. That's the impression I got from reading this: the wine industry/scene/experts is a twisted world where everyone constantly fools themselves and are even more easily fooled. Then again, there are all those that call themselves 'foodies', buy NFTs, and believe whatever crazy stuff the Republicans are spooning their acolytes this week. The world is full of suckers. And some shell out thousands of dollars for a taste of.... something really subjective!

In any case, a fun and interesting read if you like to see how mass hysteria plays out in the echelons of viticulture.

[Claudio Arato · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent story worthy of Michael Lewis' The Big Short. Written after the documentary "Sour Grapes", this is a nice and even empathetic coda to the wine fraud perpetrated on people who should have known better but didn't need or care to do so because of their wealth. Hubris was found out because one billionaire stepped up and the wine houses involved could feel real impacts.

Certainly, Kurniawan played the fall guy for his crimes but this is an incomplete story because the allusion of family drives the missing why here. Still, a fine story as a lover of wines that are great but not likely to be counterfeited. 4.1/5

And now: https://lamag.com/crimeinla/wine-forg....