Italian Police Find 9,000 Bottles of Fake Moët


Police in Padova discovered a bottle of champagne did not have a serial number on it while investigating a separate group in late 2015. This led the police to discover 9,000 bottles of sparkling table wine marked as Moët to be found. Police found eight people involved in the operation…

Demand Drives Wine Counterfeiting


David Wainwright, an expert wine authenticator, discusses how the demand for fine and rare wines has increased, especially in Asia, which ultimately causes counterfeiters to “create” a new supply to sell. Wainwright also covers how many of these crimes do not go to court, and therefore, the chances of conviction…

NEW THIS WEEK: January 28, 2016


In the final update of January, we added hundreds of Champagne pictures to our Gallery of Authentics, many news stories, Maureen Downey’s response to a lawsuit dropped against her, and a How To guide for WineFraud.com.

We scoured the wine fraud community and found some interesting articles for our members…

Two Suspects Arrested in Ho Chi Minh City


Two men in Ho Chi Minh City were arrested January 27, on suspicion of wine counterfeiting. Tran Van Loc and Pham Thanh Phong were found with many bottles of wine, and equipment to refill and make bottles. Authorities put the two men in custody, after Phong admitted to buying empty…

Bordeaux Winemaker Found Guilty of Fraud


Multiple news sources have covered a wine fraud of a different sort this week. Loïc Pasquet, winemaker of Liber Pater in Bordeaux, was found guilty of fraud of almost 600,000 euros given to him in aids and grants from the EU. Pasquet was accused of doing false promotional work and…

Stolen Côte Rotie Wine Found in Hidden Cellar


According to Decanter.com, a small wine producer in Rhone has recovered about a quarter of the wines stolen from a December 2014 wine heist. Domaine Garon had 1,800 bottles of wine stolen over a year ago which would represent about ten percent of their total production.  The wines stolen were…

Gil Lempert-Schwarz Drops Suit Against Maureen Downey


We are pleased to note that Gil Lempert-Schwarz has now dropped his lawsuit against Maureen Downey and Chai Consulting, LLC.  This unfounded claim arose from Ms Downey’s continued quest, online and in person, to expose those who knowingly sell counterfeit wine, defraud consumers, and those who facilitate such sales.  Whilst…

NEW THIS WEEK: January 21, 2016


In this week’s update, we added some really exciting new content! For the newest In The Loupe® segment, Travis Pollard of Paragon Label shows us all about labels in an incredibly interesting look at how labels can thwart counterfeiters. We also added the next installments for the Rudy Kurniwan trial…

NEW THIS WEEK: January 14, 2016


This week we added in two new blog posts from our contributors, one highlighting the Rudy Kurniawan appeal, and the other discussing Premier Cru. Both large wine frauds, from different sides of the story. We also continued to add in more Rudy Kurniwan evidence, focusing on Le Pin, and galleries…
ALERT: Content is protected !!