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    In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire
    In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire
    In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire
    Audiobook8 hours

    In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire

    Written by Peter Hellman

    Narrated by Charles Constant

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    About this audiobook

    Few gain entry to the privileged world of ultrafine wines, where billionaires flock to exclusive auction houses to vie for the scarce surviving bottles from truly legendary years. But Rudy Kurniawan, an unknown twentysomething from Indonesia, was blessed with two gifts that opened doors: a virtuoso palate for wine tasting, and access to a seemingly limitless (if mysterious) supply of the world's most coveted wines.

    After bursting onto the scene in 2002, Kurniawan quickly became the leading purveyor of rare wines to the American elite. But in April 2008, his lots of Domaine Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis red burgundy-dating as far back as 1945-were abruptly pulled from auction. The problem? The winemaker was certain that this particular burgundy was first produced only in 1982.

    Journalist Peter Hellman was there, and he would closely investigate as a singular cast of characters-including a Kansas-born billionaire, a wine-loving young prosecutor, and a crusty FBI agent-worked to unravel the biggest con in wine history. Whether driven by the love of wine or of justice, all were asking the same question: Was the mild-mannered Kurniawan himself a dupe? Or had one young man-with little experience and few connections-ensnared the world's top winemakers, sellers, and drinkers in a web of deceit?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 15, 2017
    ISBN9781541473669

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    Reviews for In Vino Duplicitas

    4/5

    25 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Do no think would recommend to read the book. But definitely to listen to.


      A lot of details of Rudy’s case never heard before.

    • 4/5
      If you've seen "Sour Grapes" - and if you haven't, you should - much of this will be familiar. But still, its a detailed narrative of Rudy Kurniawan (his assumed, rather than real name, but the one by which he is best known) and his assault on the very high end of the wine market, flooding it with forgeries. Its not hard to have some sympathy for him; after all most of the dupees were spending tens even hundreds of thousands of dollars on bottles and cases of rare wine. If they can't tell the difference between the real and the fake, more fool them no? Its not quite a victimless crime, but surely caveat emptor? Its hard to generate sympathy for Bill Koch for exampleA couple of questions remain though, which In Vino Duplicitas, entertaining as it is doesn't quite to the bottom of. Firstly, and probably most importantly, where did the money come from? How does a student and refugee go from part time employment at the golf pro shop, to charging hundreds of thousands of dollars a day at Hermes and trading millions of dollars of wine in just a couple of years? Secondly, to what extent were the wine auction houses complicit? Maybe the wine was dubious, but it boosted sales and sale prices and that's good for everyone. And thirdly, did Kurniawan start off as a fraudster, or did he simply work out that the so called wine afficianados really couldn't tell the difference between the good stuff and plonk, and couldn't resist the chance to pot such slow moving targetsA great yarn, but not the end of the story
    • 2/5
      Goodreads just ate my review, so here's the short version.

      This could have been really good—the crime and the characters are interesting—but Hellman didn't really explore the events of the characters in enough depth and his prose was flat. There were several paragraphs and passages that were repeated almost verbatim in different chapters, as if the author was attempting to "pad out" his manuscript. Save your time and wait for a better book on these events. Or just go back and read the multitude of magazine articles already written about this fraud.
    • 4/5
      For most of us, the world of rare and and expensive wines is very foreign indeed. It's hard to wrap one's head around the fact that there are bottles of wine in existence that are valued at more than a brand new vehicle and that people actually purchase and drink these wines. This is an interesting account of the story of con man Rudy Kurniawan, who forged a tremendous amount of these wines and was eventually caught. Definitely a different kind of true crime story and an interesting read.