FAKE FINE WINES ARE EVER MORE STARS AT INTERNATIONAL AUCTIONS: ROMANÈE-CONTI MOSTLY AFFECTED. LATEST VICTIM WAS MAGNUM DE LA TÂCHE 1962 REMOVED JUST BEFORE CHRISTIE 'S AUCTION IN NEW YORK

Danger lurks even in the world of wine auctions where fake wines are harder and harder to discover. The latest case of counterfeiting was a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, and the co-owner, Aubert de Villaine, complimented the auction house Christie's for withdrawing a Magnum La Tâche 1962 judged a fake, a few days before the auction was held in New York.

It is a very precious bottle, with a starting price set at 24.000 US dollars; so removing it from the sale represented a small sacrifice for the London auction house, but also confirmed its seriousness.
The magnum in question could be another "work" of the fraudster Rudy Kurniawan, known as "Doctor Conti" for his alleged ability to "falsify" the most noble bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, is currently awaiting judgment in the U.S., as author of a series of false Romanée-Conti wines blocked in the auction "Spectrum Wine Auctions and Vanquish sale", in February 2012.
The falsification of bottles of great value is proving to be a worrying phenomenon that is on the rise and not always can the auctions houses avoid it: in 2010, Christie's was at the center of a legal storm because it sold false large bottles.
The case, which is quite different from what happened in New York in the last few days, concerned the American billionaire William Koch, who had bought 4 bottles of wine belonging to the third U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson, for 300.000 US dollars (later proved to be false) and accused the London auction house of being in the know. It is not surprising, then, that the Burgundy wines, with bottles like Romanée-Conti are subject to the "attention" of counterfeiters since at the recent Acker Merrill & Condit auction in New York and Christie's in Hong Kong, they registered stellar prices: 6 bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1996 and a case of Henri Jayer Cros Parantoux 1996, were bought for 29.520 US dollars. And, three bottles of Romanée-Conti 2004 were sold for over 27.000 US dollars.