BOGUS
WINE
AP PHOTO/KIN CHEUNG
angrily to the puzzled restaurant
staff when one of the shipments arrived with some broken bottles.
KURNIAWAN ALSO hosted lavish tasting dinners in Los Angeles,
where old and rare bottlings of astronomically expensive wines like
Chateau Petrus and Domaine de
la Romanee-Conti were served. In
the wine world, these dinners were
taken to be an example of his wellpublicized generosity. Less well
known was that he charged dinner guests $5,000 each, according
HUFFINGTON
08.12.12
to two people who were invited to
these dinners. If many of the wines
were counterfeit, as now seems
likely, the magnanimous Kurniawan
walked away with a profit.
When Kurniawan felt the need
to explain where he got his money,
he often said he received an allowance from his brother in China to
care for their mother. As with much
else in his life, it was a mixture of
fact and fiction. Kurniawan did indeed live with his mother in Los
Angeles, and occasionally took the
family matriarch to wine tastings.
The government said Kurniawan’s
brother gave him $1.5 million during one 18-month period, but that
Bottles
of 2000
Chataeu
Petrus on
display at a
wine auction.
A case could
cost up to
$61,900.