BOGUS
WINE
HUFFINGTON
08.12.12
barely covered his lavish lifestyle.
In reality, Kurniawan financed
his spending sprees by selling tens of millions of dollars in
rare wines at public auction and
millions more in private sales,
according to government documents and civil lawsuits.
‘SHIT HAPPENS’
The boom in the sale and price of
rare wines several years ago mirrored the U.S. housing bubble. Instead of mortgage brokers willing
to look the other way while people
with sketchy income signed on
to six-figure mortgages, the wine
boom was fueled by an industry
willing to look the other way when
seemingly unavailable vintages
popped up for auction.
“Wines that had disappeared
from the market 30 years ago were
reappearing, often in large-format
bottles,” Cornwell says. Large-format bottles may contain the equivalent of anywhere from two bottles (a
magnum) to 40 bottles (a Melchizedek). Collectors prize them.
Kurniawan seemed to have more
than his share of this new supply
of previously unavailable wines.
His most celebrated achievement
was selling $35 million in wine
in 2006 at two auctions in New
York City dubbed “The Cellar”
and “The Cellar II