How to be sure the wine matches the label(1)
Type the words "empty wine bottles" into eBay's search engine and you will soon be presented with a number of options to purchase all manner of empties from the world's greatest wine estates. Within seconds, I found examples of magnums and bottles of distinguished vintages from Bordeaux and California. I can understand keeping a bottle as a trophy from a particularly special vintage or grower, but I have no inclination to start a collection of empties. So why would somebody want to buy an empty bottle, in some cases for hundreds of pounds?
As eBay says, there are myriad reasons for buying old bottles, from decorating a restaurant to storing homemade wine. But let's speculate for a moment. How probable is it that one might be tempted to purchase an empty bottle from a particularly valuable and sought-after domaine, refill it with a similarly aged wine of above-average quality (but by no means as valuable) and try to pass it off as the original? It would be a fun trick to play at a dinner party. But could it actually fool an expert?
"There have been fakes for hundreds of years, certainly in France," says wine authenticator Maureen Downey, owner of Chai Consulting in San Francisco. "As somebody who is experienced at looking at these things, you can tell when the capsule isn't right. It is believed that one of the methods of making a fake wine is by refilling an empty bottle. We often find it is a very old bottle with a brand new cork but no indication of recorking."
As the prices for fine wine have increased, so have fears about counterfeits. One Hong Kong merchant told me that restaurants there are now more diligent about smashing the empties of particularly prestigious wines. Although not an exact science, the authenticity of a product—which can be verified by the glass, label, weight and color of the liquid—remains a very real concern.
Take, for example, the European debut of California-based Spectrum Wine Auctions, which last week came to London for its much-billed "Evening Sale." Hours before Spectrum and its local partner, Vanquish wine merchants, were due to accept bids at a sale room in the Mandarin Oriental hotel, they released a statement saying they were withdrawing 13 lots from the auction, including a number of bottles with the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti label, due to "apparent label discrepancies." The domaine, through its U.K. agent Corney & Barrow, confirmed it couldn't verify the wines' authenticity. Eight lots from Burgundy's Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé were also withdrawn. Richard Brierley, head of fine wine at Vanquish, says those lots were withdrawn "as a matter of precaution" after a specific request from the domaine. Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé declined to comment.
