Sour Grapes

Rudy Kurniawan was a rich Indonesian wine collector with a fascination for Burgundy, and he spent millions of dollars on wine and also sold countless bottles of fake wine. Acker Merrall & Condit, an auction company, broke records by selling US$35 million worth of Kurniawan's wines in 2006 (equivalent to about $56M in 2025). In 2008, the firm held a sale at a Manhattan restaurant, promising the wines would be authenticated by "some of Burgundy's most discerning connoisseurs." Included were alleged bottles of Domaine Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis from the years 1945, 1949 and 1966, but an estate proprietor revealed that that particular wine had not been produced until 1982. In 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Kurniawan's house in Arcadia, Los Angeles and discovered his wine fraud, whereby he collected empty bottles and refilled them with cheaper wine and then forged the labels. In 2014, he became the first person in the United States to be convicted of the crime, and was given a ten-year sentence by a New York federal judge. Kurniawan declined to be interviewed for the documentary.