Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: How Wine Fraud Works

Episode Date: December 28, 2019

Wine fraud may be a case of rich con artists tricking wealthy people into parting with money, but it's still a crime. Learn all about this weird, widespread practice in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Happy Saturday, everyone. This is Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and welcome to my select pick for the week. This is from October 15, 2015, and it's called How Wine Fraud Works.

And I selected this because it's been a minute since I've listened to it, and I love wine, as you know, and I hate wine fraud, as you probably know as well. So let's learn about it together. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And no, stuff you should know. Man, that coffee smells good. You want some? Have a sip. No, I'm fine, but it just, I just love that smell. So nice. Even though I don't drink much coffee. Oh, yeah, I'm with you.

You know, it's just a delicious smell. Sometimes I'll go to a department store and just walk through the fragrance aisle and just smell the coffee samples they have there. I thought you were going to say you'd go through the lingerie and just brush up against things? After the coffee sniffing's done, and I can't smell anything anymore.

Right. How are you? Thanks for outing me. Man, that's creepy. You know, I'm sure there's weirdos out there who do that, too. Are you kidding me? There's probably websites dedicated to it. Yeah.

I'm fine. Good. Good. You like wine? I love wine. How do you know, Chuck, that the wine you're drinking is actually the wine you think it is? Because nobody bothers to fraudulently rip off

a $15 bottle of wine. Not true. Yeah? Yeah. There is a famous-ish in the world of wine, fraud, watch people from Tesco, which is, I think it's just a straight-up supermarket in Britain. I saw that, actually.

Yeah, you're right. And there is a Louis Jadot, which normally goes for about 15 pounds. It was selling on sale for five pounds. That's a good deal. But one of the guys who purchased it contacted some people who were into wine and said, I think this is phony because the label looks

like it's a photocopy. So if somebody was doing knock off Louis Jadot, which normally goes for not that much, and sold it to Tesco, who was in turn selling it. And this is a huge thing, man. There's a big, big debate, even still, on just how widespread wine fraud is. And it's really difficult to get to the bottom of,

because there's so many people who have their fingers in this fraudulent pot, whether wittingly or unwittingly. And either way, are unwilling to admit that it's as extensive as it is. Or the people who are burned are making a bigger deal out of it than they are, than it really is. Because they have the money and the context

to get CBS to do a story on how they got burned by buying some fake wine. So it's not entirely clear how widespread it is. But there have been some really great, very famous, almost proven stories of outright wine fraud. But it's a pretty new phenomenon. Well, if you think ancient Rome is pretty new. Let's hear it, man.

Well, I mean, ever since there was wine, people were making fake wine, or trumping it up as something other than it was. So the newer practice, you can divide it into two things. There was an ancient Rome, they were doing stuff like this, and adding lead to wine to sweeten it while they were killing people. But then there's the new practice of like, hey,

this is a Thomas Jefferson bottle of wine. And you can buy it at a Christie's auction for $100,000. And it's really not that at all. Do you remember back in the 80s, I think where you needy was adding like windshield wiper fluid or something? It was at the very least an urban legend. More recently, there was something added to wine

to make it sweeter that was really bad for you. But I don't know, I can't confirm if it was that case or not. This was specifically reuniting in the 80s. And again, it could have just been an urban legend because it's the same time that there were spiders, eggs, and bubble yum. Sure. Yeah, there was a lot of consumer panic, I think.

Yeah, it was a golden age for urban legends. Yeah, agreed. And you know what, we need to do one-on-wine period. Yes, this is so us. Yeah. We'll do episodes on everything but the actual thing. And then we'll finally get to the thing. And we could also probably do a completely separate podcast

on wine tasting because, man, that's a really bitter pill because there are some people who say there really is no difference in these wines. And there have been numerous occasions over the years where jerks have set up wine tasters to fail by just switching out wines and saying, this is a really nice bottle or what's really crappy. And they say, whoa, this is lovely.

The Tannins are really coming in. It's jammy and full. And they're like, you're drinking two buck chuck. People love that stuff. It's a big bone of contention with wine drinkers and also people who like to poo-poo that and say, it's all subjective and you're all just snooty and either really is no difference.

But there really is a difference. Well, OK, so there is a, like you say, there's a big debate over that, right? Yeah. But if you dive into the world of high-end vintage wine collecting, it is very, it's like an uroboros, right? That snake that eats its own tail. Right.

In that the people who are in charge of judging, whether something's real or not, are basing that on their previous experiences, which may or may not have been an experience with a fraudulent wine. So even if you can tell the difference, if you've only been exposed to say fraudulent 18th century wine, then when you are asked to judge a bottle of 18th century

wine, you're going to compare it to that. And if it's ultimately coming from the same counterfeiter, you will be like, yes, this is the real thing because I've had that before and it tastes like that. Well, yeah, and here's the other thing, is there is vintage appropriately aged wine that is tastes great because it has aged in such a way. And then there are these super old bottles

that apparently taste like canned asparagus is the note that it brings out. And these don't even taste that good. It's just the fact that you can own it and show people. You don't even drink it in most cases. Yes. You don't drink a Jefferson wine. No.

You have it in your collection. So let me say, ooh, look at my collection. Exactly. That's the whole point. A lot of people, or for a lot of people, that's the whole point is just own this bottle. It's like owning a piece of Thomas Jefferson and you get to show off and tell people how great you are.

Right? Yeah, exactly. So that's how a lot of wine counterfeiting has gotten away with because the people are never going to open the wine. Exactly. So whatever tampering you did with the seal is never going to be discovered. They're never going to taste the wine inside.

So it could be $2 chalk or whatever. Won't see the cork. Yeah. And they're just happy to have this thing and their status to be elevated. It's to the point where they don't really want to know if it's a counterfeit. So long as they can walk around and tell people,

this is Thomas Jefferson. Right. Well, we should go ahead and start talking about Bill Koch. He is one of the other brothers. He is not Charles or David Koch of the famous Republican Koch brother fame. Billionaire supporters of the Republican Party. Yeah.

Yeah? Sure. Are you saying that's the nicest way to describe them? It really is. Yeah, it is. He is the brother, one of the brothers who got out along with another brother. But not another brother from another mother.

No, they're all the same mother, right? Right. OK. Yeah, he got out of the family business and said, you know what? A billionaire, what I'm going to do is I'm going to start collecting really rare and expensive things.

One thing he has is a gun collection. He owns Custer's Rifle. Billy the Kid's pistol. Does he? Yeah. He owns the gun that killed Jesse James. Oh, I'm sorry. He has Jesse James pistol and that gun.

And that gun. What was his name? Robert Ford? Yeah. And that was a good movie. Oh, boy was it. It was really good. Beautifully shot as well.

Wyatt Earp's rifle, Doc Holliday's rifle. He owns a lot of vintage guns. He owns a lot of very famous works of art, like original Picasso's and Monet's. Right. As far as he knows. Exactly. He sounds like a big sucker to me.

And he also owns, as this article says, several hundred bottles of what he calls moose piss. Yeah, that's what he calls it. Well, he's saying that for all he knows, that's what's inside. He got duped very famously. Many, many times. Yeah. And he has had many, many lawsuits over the years

that have come out. This guy loves suing people. Oh, sure. He does what he calls drop and subpoenas on people. Oh, yeah? Yeah. He sues people almost recreationally. He drops a subpoena on their head?

Yeah. What a guy. So he, Bill Koch, again, very famously, he's probably the most famous victim of wine fraud. Because he sues everybody he possibly can who may or may not have sold them a fake. Sure. He really takes it personally.

And he really goes after people. And he did a lot of media about this, too. So he's very famous for this. And he brought in some wine experts and said, here are 30,000, 40,000 bottles of wine that I have in my cellars. Wow. How many are fake?

And they just took a random sample of 3,000 bottles. Oh, he kidding me? No, they said, what are you paying me? Yeah, exactly. They're like, we'll bill you for this. They took a random sample of 3,000 bottles, and it yielded 130 fakes. So I mean, he has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

by extension of fake bottles of wine in his cellar. And that was actually, that's about on par with what the average, not necessarily uninitiated or uneducated wine buyer, but fervent vintage wine buyer would have, that about $4 million cellar, about a million of it will be on fakes. Yeah, and he supposedly spent close to $5 million on fake wine over the past quarter century,

including some of those Jefferson's that we'll talk about. And a lot of this wine came from a man named Rudy, Curniawan. Oh, that's good stuff. Yeah? It's even better than I had in my head. What'd you have? Curniawan.

Curniawan? I like that, actually. I think Curniawan is good. And this guy was one of the most famous, really, alongside another guy that we'll talk about, one of the most famous wine fraudists. Fraudsters? Fraudster.

Counterfeiters? Counterfeiters of all time. And he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and supposedly was to pay close to $50 million in damages. Which is easily what he made by selling fake wine. Sure. In two sales in 2006, he made $36 million selling fake wine.

What a jerk. And it's easy to sit back, and the defense team even used this in court to say, these are rich guys, like no harm, no foul, who cares if you're ripping off the rich. Yes, very easy. And I even found myself kind of thinking that. But at the end of the day, it's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong. Sure.

I mean, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't sell a counterfeit bottle of wine. Yeah, it's wrong. It's illegal, and it's gross. And just because you're ripping off the rich, it's not like he's Robin Hood and giving that then to the poor. He was having rich himself. I didn't have the idea that he was doing that.

Plus, Dave Rues, who wrote this, made this point. But I take issue with it, that ultimately vintage counterfeit wine fraud affects all wine drinkers, because that stuff trickles down. I don't think that's true, because from reading this, there were two really great long form articles that this article was partially based on. One was in The New Yorker, and one was on Vanity Fair,

and both of them were totally worth reading. Yeah, agreed. But just from reading those, you get the impression that those are two very different worlds, that the world of just regular wine appreciation and vintage wine collection form a Venn diagram that just barely overlaps, and that one really does not affect the economics of the other.

So if there's a bunch of counterfeit stuff going on in the vintage wine world, it probably wouldn't drive up prices for the wine that you're buying that's 10 years old tops. So I don't think that that's necessarily true, his point that we all shoulder the burden that counterfeiters do, because these two worlds are so divorced. But even still, if people are losing money,

your reputations are being built up and lost. I get that. All right, well, let's take a little break, and we'll come back, and we'll talk about the two ways that you can generally go about trying to fake a wine. back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it.

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All right, we're back. We're drunk on wine. So drunk. I wish. What's your favorite wine? My favorite wines are big bodied California Cabernets, generally. Like, not a specific, like, wine maker,

if that's what you're asking. I'm not going to like. Yeah, there is no wrong answer. Yeah. No. Well, why was that funny? Because it made me think of Fat Bottom Girls, that Queen song.

Big bodied California Cabernets. Yeah, it just popped in my head, and I laughed like a goon. Yeah, I like really full bodied wines, Zimp and Dells and Cabernets. Yeah. I think California is just, they're doing it right. You know, they say Petit Sera is the Rodney Dangerfield of the wine world.

That's why I've heard that. So if you're going to go about faking a wine, there are two things you can do. You can either fake the wine inside a real bottle, or you can fake the bottle with real wine. Yeah, and it's all real wine. But it's just different vintage, maybe. Yeah, but it could be like a really nice 1947 wine

that you say, oh, it's actually from 1914. Or even 1941. I mean, it could be within a couple of years. Well, yeah, that's true. It depends on whether it was a good year. Yeah, good point. Or if there's a scarcity of it, that kind of stuff. And actually, Bill Koch makes a pretty good point.

His whole thing is he wants to have, I think, 150 years of Lafitte or some house, like every single vintage that they released of every single varietal over the course of 150 years, which is extremely ambitious. Sure. And he said, it's easy to get the really prized ones, because those are the ones that people saved and all that. Right, right.

He said it's the mediocre years that are old that nobody bothered to save. They just drank it through the bottle or just didn't keep it. Right. Those are the ones that he has the most trouble finding. Or they did the skeet shooting. They just had the servants throw it up in the air and they shot him with shotguns.

That's what they do, richie riches. Well, you make a good point, too, because Kearney Yawin, although he dealt in the super high echelon, he would also take a 200 bottle of wine and fake it to be like a $1,000 bottle of wine. Yeah, he did it both ways. Yeah. He would take an old bottle, a legitimate real bottle,

put in his own mix of wine and cork it again and make it look like it had never been opened. Yeah. Or like you said, he would take, just say, a 47 Le Fite and mess with the label to make it look like a 41 Le Fite, which would be worth 10 times what the 47 Le Fite would be worth. Right?

And clearly, I also want to point out, Le Fite is obviously the only fancy wine that I'm familiar with, because that's my go-to. So if you guys are out there and you're getting the impression that I know what I'm talking about as far as wine goes, you have been duped. Well, you're not a big wine guy. You're on record as such.

I like wine. I'm definitely not a wine guy. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not wine guy either. I'm the very, I'm wine guy in the bare sense of the word. I like really good wines. I like going to wineries. But I'm certainly no like, I'm not

saying I have some amazing palate. I can't pick out vanilla notes and things like that. I'm just like, man, this tastes really good. Well, that's OK. Let me pour a bottle of it. And I tend to fall into that camp where I'm certain that there are people out there, literal taste makers, who can tell the difference between wines.

Sure. And I've had wine that I didn't like before. I've had wine that I do like. But I fall into the camp where I'm ultimately like, it's whatever you appreciate. There's no hierarchy. There doesn't need to be a $2,000 bottle is not necessarily going to taste as good as a $20 bottle.

The whole thing is just about individual enjoyment. And it kind of snobbery associated with it to me just misses the point. Yeah, here's my deal. I can really tell the difference between what I would consider cheap wine and a decent bottle or a good bottle. But that's where my taste level maxes out. I can't tell the difference between a $200 bottle

and a $40 bottle. But if you gave me a $6 bottle, you can taste the difference. Between that and a $20 bottle? Yeah, but even then, if that's what you like, that's what you like. I'm not going to like boo-boo. It's just not what I want.

You know? Oh, man, a lot of caveats there. So we were talking about Rudy Kay. Yeah, and how he faked wines, which was he got real bottles, correct? In general, and made his own wine concoctions. Here's what this dude did, right? To get to the point where he could even counterfeit, yes.

He got his hands on real stuff. And he ran up some serious, serious bar tabs while he was doing it. Oh, yeah. There's a very legendary story of him hooking up with this guy who was the head of wine sales at an auction house called Acker Merrill. They factor in big time into this guy's ascent.

Yeah. And Rudy Kay's counterfeit ascent. Not wittingly, necessarily. But they let him use their reputation to build his own. But he did it by duping him, by throwing these crazy parties at restaurants and having $250,000 tabs, picking up the tab himself. But then after everybody left, going to the staff at the restaurant

being like, mail me every single one of those bottles. And they go, OK, it's your wine, but that's weird. Not enough to make mention of it, but it was odd to them. His big thing was that he did it at the same place over and over again. So they did start to notice. But while he was doing this, he was also collecting wine, too, really expensive vintage wine.

And there was already a market for it, but it didn't look anything like the market that he built almost himself. He drove the value of vintage wine up almost single-handedly by buying up as many bottles of old stuff as he could. And while he was doing that, he was building his reputation. He was making connections. And he was getting his hands on legitimate wine

that he could use to resell now that the market was up at a higher price after he'd already consumed it at, say, like a party. Yeah, and one thing he was doing that tipped off some people early on was, like you were saying, he was buying off years of good vintages, great vintages, to where there was one guy, the thing is, Jeffrey Troy was his name.

He was a wine merchant. And he said he was buying these good bottles of French Burgundy, but they weren't great. They were off years, and it was just, if he was a collector, it was just weird to buy these and to be adamant about buying these because he could get them for cheaper and fake them easier. Exactly, like he could just kind of smudge the year,

and all of a sudden it's a much more expensive vintage. So he's driving the market up. He's buying legitimate wine. Apparently he's taking out loans that he defaulted on to build this reputation on his. And so when the market hits, he starts counterfeiting. And there was one story that actually was pretty prominent in the Vanity Fair article

where he was apparently confused. He thought, and there's no way that any of us would have ever thought this, but he thought that a Ponceau Clos Saint-Denis was the same thing as the Christine Ponceau Clos Saint-Denis. Right, he was way off. So it turns out that he figured that Ponceau made this wine in Burgundy in the 40s because Christine Ponceau

Clos Saint-Denis made this wine in the 40s. Turns out that the regular Ponceau, the very famous Ponceau family, made their Clos Saint-Denis starting in the 80s. So he actually got found out because of this one mistake. This led to his unraveling. And he was going to auction or sell about 95 bottles of this stuff that was overtly counterfeit. It had never existed, which also said a lot about the collectors

at the time, too, because they were covening and paying for wine that they'd never even heard of. Yeah, it didn't exist. Strictly because these people were attached to it. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. It really is. And that's how he was able to get away with it for so long, because that dinner, the guy Ponceau himself, the guy who

was the proprietor of the vineyard, showed up at that dinner, flew from Paris to, I think, New York to be at the dinner to make sure that they didn't auction off those things because he knew they were counterfeit. And Rudy Kaye still was left to just keep going for years after that because of reputations. Well, and like you said, he had built up this reputation, which is a big part of it.

You have to be a true con artist. You can't just go in there and say, hey, I've got all these Jefferson wines. I'm Chuck. Right. You know, you have to be known in the community, and it takes a long time to build that rep. Right, yeah, they have to think you have money, real money.

Which he did. No, he borrowed it all. Well, I thought he came for money. No, that was a fact story. Was that all a ruse? Yeah. Well, he had money at one point. He borrowed it.

Oh, no, but then he made a lot. Right. So think about this. I think he defaulted on a three or $4 million loan and then another $1 or $2 million loan. And then he also borrowed privately from other wine collectors that he knew. Yeah.

But even still, let's say he borrowed $10 million that he defaulted. He made tens and tens and tens more millions, $34 million in one year just from two sales. Yeah, and he currently is appealing his conviction on the grounds that when he was arrested, he was arrested on his front porch and they searched his house.

Yeah. And they said, you can't do that. They got the search warrant afterward. And he said, well, you can't do that. I should have never been searched. Yeah, really? And it's looking like they're saying now, you know what, they had reasonable doubt to search your home.

Bill Koch said. Yeah, exactly. So I don't think that appeal is going to go anywhere. But this is as recently as like this year, I think he's still appealing. Yeah. But he got 10 years, right? Yeah.

10 years, man. So he got caught. And he got caught red handed, it sounds like. And the people who were attached to him that helped build up this market definitely suffered some dings to their reputation. Oh, yeah. But are saying like, we had no idea.

We trusted this guy. We were duped to. And to their merit, Acker Merrill offered like money back guarantees on anything that was considered or found to be fake. And paid up on it after one auction. Well, one of the guys Coke is suing is, can't remember his name, but he supposedly is like,

I didn't know I was selling you fake wine. Like I got duped. Right. And he's saying, no, you knew. So they're trying to prove whether or not this guy actually knew. And so that's another part of that debate where how widespread is this?

Who knows what? Yeah. And who's like, how far do you go back before you find the person who did it? Right. So we'll talk about one other person who allegedly did it right after this break. On the podcast, Hey, Dude, the 90s called David Lasher

and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey, Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey, Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s.

Listen to Hey, Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing.

Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear.

And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step.

Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart

radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So Chuck, there's another man, very famous man in the wine world. His name is Hardy, Hardy Rodenstock. But I don't believe that's his real name. His real name is what? Mineheart Gurke. That's right.

What a name. That's his given name, but he goes by Hardy Rodenstock and has since the 70s. And he, to be a truly great wine counterfeiter, not only do you have to build up a reputation as rich and willing to crack bottles of ridiculously expensive, historically valuable wine at parties, where there's wine critics and auctioneers and wine experts.

But you also have to have a certain love for wine. I think Rudy Kaye definitely loved wine. Yes, but they all have. But yeah, and Hardy Rodenbach definitely does too. And apparently, there's a big question about whether he is one of the better wine mixers on the planet. Who, Rodenstock?

Yeah. Because that's a real job, where someone will work at a wine and they'll take a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And then all of a sudden, you've got their blend. Some blends are better than others. Apparently, Rodenstock is a master blender, if he is, in fact, a counterfeiter. This article on how stuff works makes it sound like Bill Cokes

hired FBI gun, closed the book, and it's done. But it's never been proven in a court of law that Rodenstock actually was this counterfeiter. And he still denies the allegations. The circumstantial evidence is pretty substantial. Yeah, I mean, I think the only reason is because he refuses to come to America to go to court. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. He's like, I'm German. But there's no criminal prosecution. It's all civil as far as I understand. Yeah, I think that's the case. So he was a former music manager. And I think they're making a book called

The Billionaire's Vinegar about the Jefferson wines. So interesting. That they're making to a movie with McConaughey, of course. Oh, yeah? Does he play Bill Cokes or Hardy Rodenstock? I don't know who he's playing. Or does he just kind of wander around dazed in the background?

He's the wine maker, man. Yeah, I'm not sure who he's playing, actually. But it was a big book. And it was about the famous Jefferson wines. And basically, the deal is Thomas Jefferson, as we all know, was way into wine, way into France. A big Franco file. And he had either bottles in his collection,

or he had his own vintage as well, Thomas Jefferson wines. And very famously, Hardy and Stock was rooted out, allegedly, I guess. Do we have to say that? As faking these Jefferson bottles. Yeah. He would force, you're supposed to spit out when you're drinking wine and tasting.

He would, I don't know about force, but highly encourage his guests to swallow. So they would be drunker by the time they got to the real good stuff at the end. Which is, again, so it's unusual to force your guests to drink rather than spit out the wine at a tasting party. And then it's also unusual to bring out your best stuff at the end, because everybody knows your palate is saturated,

and you can't really tell the difference anyway. Well, if you've ever been on a wine tour and go to several wineries, you definitely, at the last winery, you're like, give me a case. Right. This is great. Yeah. So when he's throwing these parties and these tastings,

again, he's invited and very smart to invite wine experts, wine critics, wine journalists. It's an event. It is an event. And again, all these people think that this dude is just this eccentric, extraordinarily rich dude who is literally opening to drink and share with them. Yeah.

These wonderful, these people who are peons compared to this man. He's such a great man, because he's opened a 1787 bottle of Thomas Jefferson's wine, and he's given me a glass. I've got to go write about it. I got to talk about how great Hardy Rodenstock is. So he's very smart to have surrounded himself with the people he did.

Yeah. So his story was that he said he claimed that he found a batch of Jefferson bottles behind a brick wall in a Parisian basement that he still hasn't revealed where this is. Right. A little suspicious. A little.

Especially if you already got all the wine out of there. Yeah, exactly. And then he and he went and sold a lot of these to people like Coke and Christopher Forbes and other billionaires for hundreds of thousands of dollars per bottle. And I think they were like about 120 a bottle. Yeah, it's a ton of money.

Sure. And they were fakes. And it all came down to a little matter of punctuation, which is hysterical to me. The Thomas Jefferson bottles, well, first of all, he kept really meticulous records because he was so into wine. Jefferson did. TJ did.

Yeah. Yeah, so on the bottles, Chuck, it said it was engraved TH period, capital J period, right? Supposedly, Jefferson, when he wrote his initials, it would be TH colon capital J period. So that fatal flaw of the matter of punctuation is what gave him away, basically, period and not a colon. There's a larger question, too.

So the idea that Thomas Jefferson would have his bottles engraved was based on a letter, a verified letter. It was an order that Jefferson placed for French wine on behalf of himself and George Washington, which makes these bottles even more amazingly awesome because they think, well, these came from an order that Jefferson placed that were also in George Washington's

shipment as well. And that they needed to be separated out by initials. But if you step back and you think, they wouldn't go and engrave all the bottles. They'd just mark the crates that the bottles came in. This crate goes to George. This crate goes to Jefferson because he was ordering it by the case, not by the bottle.

So the idea that the bottles would be engraved is also dubious in and of itself. But Monticello historians are like, number one, this is wrong the way that this is engraved. It's not how he would have done it. And secondly, there's no records in all of, we have the records for this era. And there's nothing in there about these vintages

being in Monticello or being ordered by Jefferson. And then also, once Bill Koch put his FBI dude on the case, it turns out that it's likely that this engraving was done by modern instruments. Yeah, he hired a guy named an ex-fed named Jim McElroy, or I'm sorry, Jim Elroy. I know, I kept wanting to say McElroy too, I guess, because of the McElroy brothers.

So he hired this guy, paid him a lot of money, I imagine, to try and do some digging on this. And one of their first lines of defense was, there's something called cesium-137, and that is a radioactive isotope that exists because it's a product of nuclear fission of uranium. So it didn't exist until we started doing that. Before we started launching nuclear bomb explosion tests.

Yeah, exactly. Now it exists, and you can actually test for this stuff. So if you find, it basically can date something back to 1945. Right. However, in the case of Hardenstock, he was smart enough at least to use wine older than 1945. So that didn't really help him much. Yeah, and I wonder if he just, surely he just lucked out.

I don't know. But I wonder if that cesium test was around when he did this, because he supposedly found him in 85 and started selling him immediately. Yeah, who knows, maybe he got lucky. Or maybe he just was like, I need to use some really old, nice wine

to at least try and get away with it. So again, there's like, and then one other part of the case against him was that he had a tenant once at his family's house who had an apartment near his in the house. And in the basement, the tenant said that he saw like basically tons of empty bottles and stacks of labels and all this stuff,

which to the tenant meant, well, this guy's forging wine. All right, that's a little more, that's probably what I would think. Hope you don't go by my recycling every Wednesday. You're a wine counterfeiter. It could be. So there are a lot of,

there's nothing you can do about these old, I mean, you can have people inspect them. And try and verify them, but there's really nothing you can do as a like a foolproof method, but really nice wineries now are doing, there are a lot of methods you can do now for future generations of wine fraud.

Yeah, for the vintage stuff, you're SOL basically. You just have to really trust where it's coming from, probably hire an expert and maybe stay away from rodent stock if you're Bill Koch, right? That's right. But there, yeah, like you said, the modern guys are using things like RFID tags, QR codes that you scan

and it takes you to a website or something. Yeah, microchips like you have in your dog. Yeah, so you can track the actual bottle. There's also like tamper proof capsules that the wine is encased in the bottle's neck. That when that's open, it changes color if it's ever been opened. And some actually alert the internet

or I guess back home at headquarters. Yeah, they alert the internet. Once it's been opened. And there's another one that's pretty cool. There's this company that inserts a specific DNA marker into like the ink on the label that can't be counterfitted and that they can go back in later and be like, no, this is real.

At the very least, we know the label's real. Yeah, and Rudy, case case, he had a bunch of credit card charges for glue and labels and ink and he had a pretty nice trail of evidence behind him. Yeah, I'm sure. He was not very smart with it. Well, I mean, if his apartment

was just a counter-fitting factory. Yeah. And then lastly, check one of the pieces of evidence that a lot of people point to when they say that wine fraud is a big deal is eBay. Yeah, like you can go on eBay and spend a hundred bucks on an empty bottle that if it weren't empty, would go for a thousand or 10,000 or whatever.

And the idea behind it, of course, is that somebody's filling it up and putting it back on the market as a counterfeit. Why would someone sell that? That reason. To make a hundred bucks on a $10,000 bottle of wine. Sure. Some people love money.

I know, it just seems like a lot. I just, people who buy that kind of wine, I don't picture them going on eBay and running auctions over empty bottles. Well, it makes you wonder also if those are people who, they're just working at a restaurant. Well, that's what it sounds like to me. I can take that home and put it on eBay.

As the servant cleans up after the dinner party. That's what I figure is going on. And apparently a lot of restaurants now because of guys like Rudy Kay and Hardy Road and Stock. Now, smash vintage bottles once the wine's been ordered and drunk. Well, with the shotgun and the skeet shooting. I got one last thing.

Supposedly there were only five magnums of 1947 La Fleur produced. Between 2005 and 2007, 18 magnums of 1947 La Fleur were sold at auction. Wow. That's so easy to, how can that happen? That's so easy to check. When there's only five of something?

The argument is that either the guy who works at La Fleur and did in 1947 and says, no, there was only five magnums. Doesn't remember. Right. Because the record keeping in like burgundy is terrible back in the day. Sure. Or that there's just no will.

There's so much of a market for counterfeit wine and there's not enough pressure being put on the people who are actually selling it or allowing it to happen that it's just whatever. And supposedly now that America's gotten more and more savvy, this counterfeit market is moving over to China to where there's like a lot of wealth coming up and not a lot of wine education

and people are just getting taken for rides. Man. Good stuff. Yeah, this was a good one, man. Good pick. If you want to know more about wine fraud, you can type those words in the search bar at howstoveworks.com.

And I said, search bar, should I be choked? What is the time for? Facebook questions. All right. Sometimes we pull questions from Facebook to answer them. That's what we're doing now. This is from Diane Martin, Diane F. Martin. Since your podcasts are essentially

what would be called literature reviews and research lingo, how do you decide which references to include and exclude? Do you use any kind of quality indicators to decide what you will and won't include? Especially when they're deeply debated. This is a good question. We've talked about our research process. I think we try to use peer-reviewed journals.

And I mean, if we find something on the internet, we try and double and triple check that information. I know a big giveaway you always talk about is if it's the same exact thing printed a bunch, that's usually a sign that it could be bogus. Like riding a danger field being in the scout? Yeah, in the movie, the scout. But it still bears mentioning.

You just have to mention it with a caveat. We don't find it credible, but it's out there because it exists in some form or fashion. Scientific journals, medical journals. Sure. I mean, peer-reviewed is just a great way to go if you can get your hands on it. I remember this great article called

Why is Science Behind a Paywall? About basically the science publishing cartel. But if you can get your hands on it, I'm peer-reviewed stuff. That's the best stuff to work with. Agreed. Go ahead. Another question?

Yeah. Chuck. For me? This is from Shane Elliott. I knew, I think you meant no, this question will find a special place in Chuck's heart. What are your favorite types and kinds of beers and why? Do you brew your own beer?

And somebody else said recently on Twitter that you said in the beer episode that you were going to get into home brewing. Did you ever? So that's a two-part question for you, Chuck, from Twitter and Facebook. Well, you're a beer guy, too. Sure, I like beer.

I do not brew my beer, but on the record is really liking IPAs and there's a backlash going on now. Why? Because there's so many of them and people are like, there's other kinds of beers in the world. IPAs taste like soap. I love IPA.

I love anything that's super hoppy. Yeah, I do. That's what I like. Our friend Dave dropped by. Yeah, from Sweetwater. From Sweetwater and brought us some hop hash. I haven't tried it yet, have you? No, but all that stuff is good.

Sweetwater does a great job. And we've always both kind of agreed that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is one of the great all-time pale ales. It is great, for sure. But there's so many great ones. Bell's too hard, I love. Oh, man. That might be the best ever.

Yeah. And that Pliny the Elder we got since we met, that was delicious. Oh, here in Athens, Georgia, creature comforts tropicalia. I've not had that one. Delicious. Orpheus brewing is here in Atlanta.

Yeah. And they make a sour that I tried. That was really, really good. I'm not into the sours. Have you tried it? Sours? Yeah. Yeah, I don't like it.

I don't like it. I loved it. I don't get it either. It was so weird that I was like, this is kind of good. Yeah. It was weird in a good way. Sometimes weird can just be novel and you're like,

okay, I tried that, it's done. This is, I mean, I like it. I like it. Yeah, I don't like wheat beers. I don't either. Belgian whites. No, not a fan. All right.

There's your answer, fishbowl. No, I'm thirsty. Jackson Bly, other than Atlanta, what are your top five favorite cities each? Geez, New York, San Francisco, Seattle. Do they have to be American cities? No, they're cities. In that case, then I'll throw in Paris and London.

Look at me. Well, fancy, fancy. I know, I know. Let's see. I love Hiroshima, Japan. It's a really neat city. So is Kyoto. I'm going to make those tied for one, though.

Of course, New York. Sure. Let's see where else. I like D.C. a lot, too. Yeah, that's a great town. Rome, Italy is surprisingly neat. Surprisingly. What are you getting?

I mean, it's a major city. Yeah. And it's packed with people. So you would think, hey, it's a city. Sure. But it also has, I mean, you're just walking along the street, and all of a sudden, you're walking next to a 3,000-year-old wall. Yeah.

That's not even part of a museum. Oh, yeah. The city just built up around it. Yeah, dude, there'd be a fountain on a corner. That blew my mind. But somebody's peeing in. It's 1,000 years old. Right.

It's a very neat city in that regard. I like, where else? That's all I can come up with right now. Oh, you know what? I don't have to go all fancy pants. Like Charleston, South Carolina, one of my favorite places. It's a great place for food. Savannah.

Yeah. I like Charleston. I'm a Savannah. Yeah. Yeah. They're similar to me. Yeah. Charleston is a little more refined, but also a little more modern.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not fancy pants to like cities overseas. No, I know. But when someone says Paris, you're like, yeah. The Paris is awesome. It is. It's a great time.

In London, when's the last time you were in London? Like 20 years ago. Okay. You should go back. Because London is like a brand new city. Yeah, I bet. There is something to do at all times now. They have cabs, which is apparently like the big thing that changed there.

And it's just an awesome little town. Beautiful. Well, maybe we can go there on a tour. Yes. Let's. Well, that's your turn for the question. This is from Gus M. Parker. Why did Josh grow his hair?

Gus, there's a simple answer to that. That's a good question. Because I can't. Because I realized that I have hair and I'm going to live it up while I got it. I'm going to go with Gary Rickleman. What is the best flavor of pop tart? There is only one correct answer. That's not true.

Gary, I think what the answer you're looking for is brown sugar and cinnamon. It's a good one. There's nothing wrong with blueberry or strawberry. Strawberry is really good. Frosted strawberry. As long as it's frosted. That's the key. Well, here's another key.

And here's a tip for you that don't mind clogging your arteries. Pop it out of the toaster. I know where you're going with this. Get a stick of butter. Rub it on the back, the dry side. And then around the edges of the other side. And just thank me later. I have not tried that.

And I actually heard that before from Jessica Simpson when she was pregnant. Oh, really? Apparently just went berserk on the buttered pop tarts. Never heard of that. You got time for one more? Yeah, we got time for a couple more. This is an unusual one from Michael Snivley or Snivley, one of the two. Probably Snivley.

If the Bryant and Clark were units of measure, what would they measure? Oh, man. Mine would probably, oh, I know what mine would be, is some sweat level. Oh, that's a good one. Like units of sweat per square inch or something. That's a good one. Yeah. Mine would measure the distance between any one place and awesome.

Oh, wow. Whoa. How's that? It's good. Thank you. All right, I got one more. Chelsea Hamilton, what's the most rewarding thing that stuff you should know has brought you or allowed you to do?

We've done a lot of really neat things that we're very thankful for. But I'm going to just say the live shows, because they're so much fun. They are a lot of fun. And it's fun to go to cities. I've never been to. And it's fun to meet people and get out of this little room. This is very rewarding and very fun. I'm going with Chelsea Hamilton.

All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for those Facebook questions. If you ever want to get in touch with us on Facebook, you can go to facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can also tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast. That's our handle. You can send us a good old-fashioned email to stuffpodcastthehousestuffworks.com. And, as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

Stuff You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get to.