To the victims go the spoils? Rudy’s wine, auctioned
Is this the first Kurniawan wine auction bidders can trust?
Last year, Rudy Kurniawan, 39, started serving a 10-year jail term for wine counterfeiting.
Starting tomorrow, the US Marshals will be auctioning off 4,711 bottles of wine the seized from Kurniawan.
“It may sound ironic that we are selling wine that belonged to a convicted wine counterfeiter,†said Assistant Program Manager Jason Martinez of the U.S. Marshals Service Asset Forfeiture Division, “but we are duty-bound to recoup as much value from the sale of these authentic wines as possible to compensate those who were victims of his fraud.â€
To the victims go the spoils? It will be interesting to see if the Kurniawan stigma keeps bidders away or if the third party authentication done by Michael Egan who was one of the principal expert witnesses for the prosecution will assuage those fears. (Stephanie Reeves of Houston is also appraising and authenticating the bottles.)
The wine has been stored at a California wine storage facility while Rudy Kurniawan himself is serving his sentence at the Taft Correctional Institute.
Bidding for the wines on the block begins online tomorrow and continues on December 1. There is no buyer’s premium at the US Marshals’ Kurniawan wine auction. And, well, caveat emptor.
On November 30th, 2015 at 1:27 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
There were some reaction on Twitter:
@Jaqiboy says: “Spoils sound correct. Where where they stored @ 89 Degrees?”
@mattsix says: ” that’s a whole bunch of Liberty Bay Merlot- what was he using it for?” Hmm, good question. Did it have a tag “can use as Petrus” on it?
On December 8th, 2015 at 12:25 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
“Since March, the wine has been
stored in a vault at 55 degrees Fahrenheit for the auction
house, which has also sold off Bernard Madoff’s vintage watches
and Steinway piano.”
This is from a good piece about the auction now on Bloomberg.com
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-08/feds-sell-vino-from-convicted-fraudster-veritas-not-guaranteed