It’s a steal

Stephen Burton, one of two British gentlemen charged with conducting a $99 million wine investment scam

Wine is hardly exempt from fraud. Like anywhere else your money is involved, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Many of you have no doubt seen the movie Sour Grapes about a guy who counterfeited bottles of the world’s most expensive wines. I personally was affected by a Ponzi scheme run out of an online store called Premier Cru, but thanks to American Express got all my money back (lesson learned!) The latest scam involves two British gents who set up a wine investment fund called Bordeaux Cellars and promised outlandish returns, but oops, never actually secured all the wines and used the $99 million they raised from American investors to fund an outlandish lifestyle. We’ve seen this movie before!

Here’s a link to an article from Decanter describing what went down. The DA prosecuting the case wryly stated: “the defendants repeated lies to investors did not age well.” The old saying in vino veritas, or in wine there is truth, doesn’t mean that much anymore, especially on the high end. In a future article we hope to profile some of the new forensic professionals who are doing the detective work to help combat all kinds of wine fraud. In the meantime, caveat emptor is the better advice.