Wine Crime & Con Artists with Rebecca Gibb, Author of Vintage Crime: A Short History of Wine Fraud

🤔 Are you curious about the greatest con artists in the world of wine❓
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💻 Join me for the debut premiere live-stream video conversation with Rebecca Gibb, Author of Vintage Crime: A Short History of Wine Fraud on Thursday, December 21st at 7 pm eastern.
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🍷 Click on the “Get Reminder” to know when I go live.
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I’ll be live-streaming this conversation simultaneously on Instagram Live Video, Facebook Live Video, or YouTube Live Video.
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❌ What creative but illegal ingredients have been added to wine to cut costs and boost profits❓
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📖 What is it about tales of crime and greed that draw us in❓
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🎙️ In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in our chat with Rebecca Gibb, Master of Wine, and author of the new book Vintage Crime: A Short History of Wine Fraud.
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Pour yourself a glass (or two) and join me here on Thursday!
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Cheers,
Natalie.

#winefraud #winecrime #winestories #winestory #winegeek #winelover #winemoments #winetime #wineworld #wine101

Are you curious about the greatest con artists in the world of wine what creative but illegal ingredients have been added wine to cut costs or improve profits and how can you avoid buying a fraudulent bottle well tonight you’re going to get those stories and more tips uh from our guest whom I’ll introduce

Momentarily but if you’re watching this video on the replay please get in the comments let me know uh type the word replay where are you logging in from what’s in your glass and of course if you’re here for the live stream I want to hear from you I’m Natalie mlan and

You’ve just joined one of the most passionate groups of wine lovers who gather every Wednesday at 7 p.m. to talk to the most interesting people in the world of wine Like Our Guest now this uh video is based on a recording I made for my podcast unreserved wine talk but it

Is being live streamed for the first time on both Facebook and YouTube live and so I’ll be here in the comments with you live so get in there let me know what tips or stories are you enjoying do you have any other questions I want to

Hear from you all right and just before I introduce my guest uh just let me say that three of you are going to win a personally signed copy of her terrific new book vintage crime a short history of wine fraud all you have to do is email me at Natalie Nataly ml.com and

Tell me you want to win a copy I’ll choose three people randomly from those who contact me all right back to our guest in addition to her new book Rebecca Gibb is the editor for the online publication Venus covering the wines of New Zealand and the lir valley

In addition she owns the wine and spirit jigsaw uh business that’s an unusual pairing that we’ll have to ask her about called puzzle crew Rebecca is one of only 46 masters of wine in the world and was awarded the outstanding Achievement Award and the Ballinger medal in recognition of her superb tasting

Abilities she lived in New Zealand for 6 years but has since returned to the north of England recently moving into the beautiful Lake District of the UK that’s where she joins us now from her home welcome Rebecca we’re so glad to have you here I’m so glad to be here

Especially when uh you tell me that you only have the most interesting people in the world I’ll take that as a very very much uh some praise yes absolutely you are you are you walk among them you are one of them Rebecca okay and the Lake

District oh I love the Lake District I studied uh the Romantic uh poets at Oxford and we went up there uh to Grass beer for a conference in the summer so you live in a such a beautiful part of the world oh my goodness yeah it’s words

With country and I really like I really like being in the outdoors when I’m not thinking talking tasting wine I like to be on the outdoors so it’s perfect for me do you ever see 10,000 daffodils at a glance tossing their heads and spritely dance no anyway not not yet but maybe BR

Next spring next spring okay good be on the watch for those okay all right I I get distracted easily before we dive into your wine career tell us about representing Great Britain in the 100 meter hurdle event so where were you and uh how old were you well yes this was

Some time ago no uh go head 20 something plus years um yeah I I was a herdler back in the day I was um British champion gosh when I was 1819 after wow yeah I discovered I was quite good at hurdling when I was at school and then

Decided to go down to the local track and started training and one thing led to another and yeah I took it all the way and ended up representing Great Britain and um just the day after my a level so A Levels sort of the equivalent

Of high school graduation I was um I was off to Germany to represent Great Britain sadly I got really badly injured about a year later and have never sort of and never gotten back to it but I’m still really sporty and I still enjoy still enjoy Fitness but yeah no I I sh

Be sh be taking up hurdles again anytime soon well it it’s a good balance that kind of healthy lifestyle as you are in the Wine and Food business um now you’re a woman of of many passions and interests you also Play The Cello so how did you get involved in that yeah my

Cello is sitting about 6′ from me ha just at school my we took we took some classes and whoever seemed moderately musical got given an instrument and my mother said that there was no way that I was going to play the violin cuz it sounded like a cat

Squalling when you were learning so I got given a cello which in retrospect wasn’t the greatest idea because it’s very difficult to transport I mean it’s not as big as a double base but you do need a fairly sizable car to transport cello and my sister also played the tuba

So yeah my parents had to buy a big car wow all the extra Cur seats there for the instruments alone my goodness yeah you got and now to round this out uh uh you love penguins why who doesn’t love a penguin I think I love a there’s many

Reasons for cute they are cute um I love the way the waddle and yet they are such great swimmers so elegant in the water and one of the things I really love about a penguin is that the male has to protect the egg while when when the

Woman goes off having a for a swim which seems to me a really great idea oh I love that they’re so Advanced enlightened do the hard work yeah absolutely are they Birds technically are they mam no I do watch David aten BR but I I should really

Should know this well they let yeah I don’t know someone someone in the comment section can Enlighten us on that one exactly someone definitely will and you’re not here because you’re a penguin expert so let me keep the focus here but but I was touched in your book as we

Start to slide toward that you decided to donate a portion of the book royalties to finding a cure for uh is it duchaine muscular distrophy yeah Duan muscular distrophy yeah it’s actually personally affected me so oh I’m Sor when you know that happens so when I when I submitted my manuscript for the

Book final manuscript some June July last year it all sort of mels into one now my son um started having some tests because you know he wasn’t keeping up with his peers he had these really enlarged muscle calf muscles and so we start we thought maybe he just had a

Really tight Achilles but he turned out he has actually muuchan muscular distrophy and which has been life-changing because it’s a life shortening disease um and it’s a muscle wasting condition that affects young boys and that’s incurable currently wow but we were really we’ve be really touched by the duen community

Here in the UK and they’ve really supported us does in understanding the disease better and trying to come to terms with that and so that’s taken over our lives really so while I was in the editing process and sort of all sorting all out the the book covers and doing

All this it was this was really the throws of just coming to terms with that so I wanted to I want to you know make things better so yeah we’ve I’ve decided that I wanted to put a portion of my royalties 10% of my royalties to finding

A cure or better treatments for duchan muscular distrophy um and I’ve also set up a bit of a plug here a um sort of a just giving page justgiving.com Mac my day my son’s called mcy and we are just going to be raising funds over the next

Few years just as try and you know help other kids as well because it isn’t just us that’s affected by it h that is so admirable and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes and in the comments on the live stream for sure thank you

Absolutely oh yeah kudos to you all right let’s get into the book vintage crime what Drew you to this story in the first place so as some as you may know or may not know I’m a master of wine so I became a master of wine in

2015 and I passed my theory and my tasting exams back in 2011 and 2012 and then I was searching for a research paper topic and I have a degree in history and politics and or whatever you call it in the US I majored in and I uh

I I just loved history and I thought well do you know what that’s my specialist I’m been a journalist for 15 20 years it suits I’m a researcher it suits mine it’s just naturally suits me it’s what I’m interested in I’m going to have to study this for the next you know

6 to 12 months it’s basically like doing a master’s thesis at Uni and so I started looking around for a topic and I stumbled across Ross a couple of stories in um in a book uh that it was very it was it was scantily covered about riots and champagne I thought this sounds

Quite interesting a juicy story and I thought that’s something I could get into I speak French I love to research so I just started scratching the surface and realizing there was so little about it in the English language and most the histories in most of the information in

French was narrative history it didn’t really really get to grips with was why it happened so I took it on and um I found out that one of the major reasons why the riots happened in champagne in 1911 was because there was an awful lot of fraud going on and people who were

Really growing the grapes and trying to make an honest living out of it were really struggling because they were basically being undercut by people who were making champagne that wasn’t made from fruit that was grown in the region wow wow that’s incredible and we’re going to dive into the champagne story

In in a bit but that that’s great and so why do you think like that intrigued you at first this champagne story you wanted to find out why it was happening and more about it but why do you think generally we love or are drawn to Tales

Of crime and greed and fraud um what is it about human nature that is fascinating fascinated with these stories look I love I love wine I’m I’m I’m a proper wine nerd but I really love people too and I love stories of people and I love stories of people who are

Less than scrupulous it’s incredible how I I have I have a moral compass but it clearly it seems that a lots of people’s moral compasses are slightly a skew there’s a fearlessness to it there’s some sort of Gile but there’s also a wondering whether you could secretly

Secretly you wonder you know could I do it and get away with it too I just I just think there’s all that I mean we’re fascinated by fraud there’s been so many Netflix series there’s been movies like true you can people love a story about people trying to get one over on others

And that’s true and and yeah it’s endlessly compelling and and the number one wine podcast I’m doing air quotes there is called wine crime but it’s it’s it’s all about two I think it’s Two Hosts discussing crime and murder mysteries as they drink wine it’s nothing to do with

Wine but it’s the number one wine podcast so there you go we are fascinated um and and there’s an acronym or something that you um have talked about mice what does that stand for mice yes that’s commonly used to give give a reason why people commit fraud it’s

Abused by academics and such like but it’s there’s lots of different fraud thing reasons there’s opposite descriptors about why people commit fraud but yeah mice is a nice acronym that people can get their teeth into so M my money people commit money people commit fraud because you know maybe they

Don’t have enough money or maybe they want more you know that’s right and then I think of ideology they really truly believe they truly believe that they are doing something that you know they can do or they can maybe get one over um on others and also they really enjoy doing

It and they justify it to themselves you know I’m doing this but others do it too or they just y their own crime and that’s sort of where the eye in mice comes from oh the system’s unfair so I’m going to get mine whatever I’m sure lot of justifications totally we all feel

Hard d by a lot of the time so if they’re doing why can’t I sort of thing sure see coercion now in some of the stories that I talk about in my book it seems that there are people who end up as part party to the crime they don’t

Want to be a part of it but they’re just sort of dragged along with it or they’re not the main actor but they do become part of the crime and that sort of the coercion thing that people are becoming involved and then e ego H you know sure

You can you can Comm if you can can can show off to a wine critic or a wine expert at a major champ a major auction house that you’ve got a bottle of a chem and they and it isn’t really a chem and they believe it to be true you know that

Can give you your ego abuse that you can actually get one over on another and it propels you into perpetuating that crime so you keep on doing it it’s sort of that ego boost that sort of little when when you do exercise you get the Endorphin buzz and for you know and for

Wine criminals that seems to be the same yeah put one over on the critic you know even they couldn’t and I would think ego plays a part too in the people some of the people who support these con artists because um they don’t want to admit they

Were duped or they like flying in these high circles because when it comes to Wine the the fraud is all at the top the very expensive bottles so I imagine there are some co- enablers involved in this whole thing in terms of why it works absolutely and that’s one of the

One of the many reasons why wine fraud has been able to be committed in the past sort of 20 or 30 years because there is that there is that ego involved people don’t want to admit they have been duked particularly if you’re I mean wine fraud today is really occurring top

Echelons now and they tend to be male Rich you know they don’t they don’t want to be seen to be wrong um there are a few people um which we talk about like Bill KO who is he’s he’s probably gone a record and say he was wrong but it takes

A lot to come out and say you know what I have been duped cuz you know it it makes you look look a little stupid yeah yeah spending thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on on fake Goods I’m sure um and and why are you personally drawn to this dark side of

Wine have you have you done any therapy on that Rebecca wow I just as I said before I just find it really compelling and I love the I mean I don’t come from a natural wine background my parents drank Le for VCH when I was growing up I

I don’t come from that background so to come into the one and and I didn’t go to private school I just I just came from quite humble background and I don’t come from the like I come from a workingclass background in the northeast of England which is more steel steel and coal

Mining so I don’t come from a natural background and I think that I’ve always kind of been a little um a little bit left of field left of center and I just find that what I really love reading about when it comes to why I don’t I

Don’t love reading about root stops and I don’t love reading about how many hectares of petty Vero are planted and I and I’m probably going to upset a lot of people here but I don’t really care whether it’s sandy soil or it’s or it’s silt I do sometimes but you know I’m

Kidding this crowd doesn’t either it’s all about the stories that’s why you’re here it’s the stories about people but people really I really connect with people I love I what I’ve read so many boring wine books in my car that are perfect for the Insomniac and I

Was like I want to write a wine book that people are actually put down and go you know what I really enjoyed that book because that is such a rarity and I really want to that’s my my my aim when I’m writing is to write a piece that

People get to the end it doesn’t have to be educational I just wanted people to get to the end and have enjoyed it right absolutely and your book certainly does that um you know I finished it recently and it does read like a detective story and yet it’s all the more powerful

Because you realize this is this happened in real life so these are real people which gives it that extra Edge so excellent yeah absolutely well done great thank you I think it’s also really important I also want people who are not just find people to read it yes I just

It’s it I hope that it extends to a wider audience who just like a bit of History absolutely anybody who’s interested in people basically or or human nature because I I think you know although you know it’s great to have happy stories and and so on but nothing

Is more fascinating than the Dark Side of human nature brings out so much uh so many contrasts the extremes of of humanity if you will so you’ve done a great job in capturing that you do not have to be an expert to a wine person

Yeah to read it I think also it’s really important like i’ I’ve always I’ve always I love wine and I love history and I wanted I’ve always wanted to bring the two together so to have this opportunity to to do it is know dream come true I’ve could you know what I’m I

May as well retire well if I had enough money I’d retire now um hopefully this will be a New York well maybe you’ve learned all the techniques you know what to do Rebecca just get some fake petruse labels or whatever kidding just kidding um yes yeah okay so you Chronicle the

History of wine fraud that goes back to the ancient times of Rome what was the most popular method of deception back then ooh popular method there were lots of popular methods in setion but it’s It’s Tricky the ran times I mean it’s really tricky because lot people love to

Like watering down was quite a common crime in bars so they’d buy their wine and maybe they buy their wine but then if bar a bar owner might then know watered it down more than he he or she probably ought to have done sure um and

Yet we that was it was considered you know underhand behavior and yet it was common practice for Romans to water down their wine in the home so it’s quite I found the Roman period quite a tricky one in terms of disc trying to and trying to discover what was considered

Normal practic or amelioration versus what was adulteration because often the two were very similar so people might um people might add uh people might add water but and that consider consider amelioration I think it’s all to do with where the intent lies yes is there some

Is there was there an intent to deceive yeah people would people would um add seawater herbs fyr they would add um they would add honey to their wine quite commonly okay to make the wines taste better cuz let’s face it in this time you know we didn’t have stain the steel

Tanks we weren’t using SO2 to protect the wine from antioxid from oxidation those techniques weren’t around so your wine soured quite quickly so people were using these basically to mask the flavor of what was essentially sour wine sure absolutely some people some people would do it intently in

Their homes they might I might carry even like a sachche around with them to add to wine if they were on the road on taverns you know if you were going along Along on if you going along on a modern car Journey you would take your own

Additions to make your wine taste more to your palette right that was not that was a melioration it’s making the wine taste better for you but if it was done in a in in a back office or something it was you know was there’s a fine line between what is called what’s

Adulteration and what isn’t sure Tri transparency I guess now you mentioned that I’m going to jump forward on the timeline because people have to get the book to get all the juicy details in between here but you mentioned that Beethoven went deaf perhaps due to was it lead poisoning or

Lead doctoring in the wine possibly Boven Lov to drink so we most of us will know that Beethoven became deaf mhm during his lifetime but many of us won’t know that he suffered from really bad cramps he was really grouchy I mean you’d probably be grouchy if you couldn’t hear and

You’re a composer but yeah he was really yeah it was irritable had like rutis his health was really deteriorating and there have been quite a lot of studies which have shown that actually it could have been one of the causes of his deess and his other medical medical

Ailment was lead poisoning because at that time people were adding lead salts or they were adding a thing called sapper or defa which was basically a reduced wine that was so it was sweet wine but it would be boiled down in a lead lined vessel therefore it would

Pick up lots of lead in it and that like almost a sweet taste and this time wines could sour quite easily so that sweet taste would make a sour wine taste quite lovely so he would drink and he would drink wines from Hungary he would drink wines from Germany but it was quite

Likely he had quite a taste of pork and at that time sort of early late 1700s early 1800 like Port is Port has is quite there’s quite a lot of lead in it and it’s definitely a reason why he could have been poison with lead and there’s a

Whole big story about this around his hair and his skull fragments and yeah just you have to read more in the uh dying for a drink chapter in my book not going to give it all way oh yeah no no nice teaser okay um so then in the 1800s

Um when the V the late 1800s I should say when the vine root fuera killed about two k you say killed off about 2 million hectares of vines what odd method did venters tried to do before they restored them now these weren’t this wasn’t about fraud I just found it

Amusing what they were doing to try to restore the vines what did they do it’s cracking isn’t it yeah so people it leads on to like I I basically just to contextualize this I try to explain why fraud occurred so it’s like my book is

More of a it’s like a history of wine to through fraud so one of the reasons that fraud occurred later on is because of the fer and the lack of wine so yeah so yet there was this huge lack of wine so fer comes H like hits French Shores in the

1860s and it takes its time to get going and they don’t know why what’s causing this and we now know that if you graft an American root stock to vtis F you have kind of you have resistance to feler that’s common knowledge not so common knowledge in the 1870s when it

Was really taking hold so the French government gives out a an a reward for trying to find trying to find what the give give some like a uh a medication a a solution for um for filo sure so people start suggesting things um so burying toads in the vineyard that

Was suggested ineffective uh po spread spreading volcanic dust that was also ineffective my favorite of all is having a marching band playing you Vineyard I mean that is definitely the best one and it might be the closest to what vendor some vendors do today they have music

Playing in the well it’s more the barrel aging seller rooms or whatever but I could just see a marching band going down the rows the vineyard rows it’s like I would love yeah unfortunately they couldn’t record it there on their iPhones so shame isn’t it but yeah by by

Sort of the late 1880s they they did come to the fact that actually they had to put it on American root stocks and but that wasn’t n that well received and it did take 20 or 30 years before it was really truly um embedded huh wow um yeah

That that would have been devastating because as we know it takes 5 to seven years for a Vine to come to maturity so new plantings even on rootstock were going to take a while before they produce the fruit that could create the wine so there would be quite a gap in

Wine production um now during World War I jumping ahead again you you note that 40% of Vineyards I think in Champagne were destroyed and yet there was more Champagne sold than produced for a period of time something like one in two bottles were fake um talk more about that so where do we

Start may have taken hold in France sort of in in parts of France in the south of France in the langad do for example in the 1860s but it didn’t really hit champagne um first recordings of f in Champagne happened in 1892 so it actually it was actually quite slow to

Take hold so it’s actually like the early naughties and the T of the 1900s where it’s actually starting to take hold now so people are having to replant at this time um they’re having bad harvests so um there’s not a lot of fruit going around and yet champagne

Sales are you know champagne’s becoming really popular at this time this is you know you can you know you’ve seen the like they see lots of posters like some people on some people’s walls now postcards from Champagne period this is time that champagne marketing is really getting going people couldn’t get enough

Of champagne and um there wasn’t enough to go around so what do you do uh you truck in wine from the langad do you’re Trucking wine from the lair and it arrives into the the uh station in neep for example as a la wi it goes into your seller

Comes out as a sparkling wine that has a champagne label on it magic yeah it is magic isn’t it um and at this time the laws are still starting still sort of starting to come together on this obviously this is not good news for the people who have just recently replanted

And spent all their life savings if they had any on replanting their Vineyards or taking out huge Bank Clans and then they got they’ve got what grapes they have are the the great prices are being depressed so people are pretty peeved about this so um you know they head out into the

Streets shout down with fraud they also are asking for you know they’re asking for bread simply they they can’t feed their families because they’re not making ends meat and that’s the champagne riots and it was it got so bad that they were jailing CH children as

Young as 12 for stealing wine like it became they were clamping down on everything fraudulent for well the the French army is stationed in EP and in around the area so around around around that area of champagne to keep the peace and they are yeah they clamp down basically they

Clamp down on stealing the riots happen wine goes down the street champagne houses go up in Flames there’s looting there’s General looting I think I think I I have to I have to verify this but I think I think that someone like gets someone get some child gets delal feel like stealing

Stealing a one single bottle of wine and some matches it’s yeah wow it a lot you know a lot of people are you know they they let go but they’re you know they they’re they’re arrested but they don’t get sentence and um but it did get is this

When Roder who produces that coveted uh cult champ Chris that the rappers have shouted out and so on is that is this when they hire a full-time fraud detective I actually don’t know I saw that in your questions earlier and I was like oh you know what I’m going to have

To find out because that is something I have not heard about but yeah okay that’s really interesting well they had a serious investment in in detecting fraud for sure I just imagine a gum Sho detective but in his office desk in the is a is a crystal bottle not the old

Whiskey anyway that’s just my runaway imagination but there’s some very creative ingredients that have had have been added to Wine you talk about rehydrating raisins and trucking up cheap wine of course at night uh but how did blueberries from Norway get into was it burgundy yeah how did they

Care yes well I mean we we love to see like Mout these days and French wine for example you know the B the wine has been bottles at the property didn’t used to be bottled at the property that’s like burgundy that’s like the embon the starts of that’s like 1930s and 40s

Where people start like the first people start really bottling at the property whyne would be sent in barrels large barrels to a port or it would be sent to a merchant and you know it could end up in anything um and yeah often and you know what Norwegian blueberries are really deeply colored

As any blueberries are really so yeah so you know if your if your wine is lacking in color and your customer wants a wine that’s deep in color yeah throw a few they want steep them in that there you go and I just have to ask this is just

Uh I don’t know if this is even in chronological order but there was a label created called cat on an egg but it was the French version what was that so um there’s a there’s a whole chapter dedicated to how the how the appellations come about in the in

1936 and the leading appellation for that occurring is shat Earth to Pap and they were really they were really stringent even before the Appalachian system was created it was they you canit read about this in the book but you know fight a pilot war hero turns into turned

Lawyer becomes you know becomes the protector of shatan enough dupat and um they so they had these really stringent laws in place even before 1936 and once 19 they one of the first Appalachians to become an Appalachian I for want of a better word and but yet then you see in

The the crit labels comes along in the ’90s you see like goats do robe you remember like robe yeah fair from South South Africa had goats to R they still do actually I think they do still surprised that they still have it so Critter labels come about you see

Kangaroos on Australian wines that sort of thing and um what in that in that sort of period Along Comes a shat um a shat on Earth so on an EG shat on Earth yeah oh my goodness Earth yes so um you can imagine the people of shaton Earth

Who have such a strong history and protecting their their Village they weren’t best pleased about that so um yeah that they were given a season thre um oh and did they did they comply did they take it off the market well shat on Earth the the shat on Earth um brand

Name sort of go was given the heave ho but the brand that replaced it there’s still a cat on an egg defiant yeah get yourself to Britain can you have a cat on an egg perfect that’s great perfect when paired with cat food oh yeah something’s got to perk that up

Um but you have a story like wine fraud has become so mainstream um The Simpsons of course which picks on picks up on a lot of leading cultural Trends before there are actual Trends what was the story on The Simpsons episode about about wine fraud ah The Simpsons yes what you don’t

Expect to read about that in a wife Fook do you no this is the very nature of my book so it’s um it’s the first series of Simpsons is in like 1990 I’m still at primary school then so I do not obviously realize the cultural significance of this yet W um there’s an

Episode called the Crepes of Wrath and I was actually I almost only became aware of this episode when I went for my coffee at my local coffee shop and and he was like the I know the guy now who works there and who owns it and

And I talking to him about my book that I’m writing and he’s like antifas this as one going it’s like do you know about the Simpsons episode and I’m like no so I go watch it anyway the Crepes of Wrath B get sent off to France on a French exchange as a punishment

For basically blowing up a toilet when principal Skinner’s mother is sitting on it anyway bad timing so he goes off to do a French exchange but he doesn’t get put with a lovely family I didn’t get po with a lovely flamon in my French exchange either anyway I digress and he

Ends up with these two WI Akers who are unscrupulous uh the owners of shatow maon and they’re adding antifreeze to their wine anyway they make Bart drink it and he really doesn’t want to do it cuz he’s seen that they’ve put antifreeze in it um it doesn’t poison

Him so they’re like oh we can do this let’s carry on um the long and short is that Bart tells a Bart tells a police officer what’s going on he tells them that he’s like Bart’s being mistre he tells he’s being mistreated he has to sleep in the donkey stable and tells her

Adding antifreeze to wine and then the police offic like antifreeze to whyne this is a scandal they get Pi up on that he goes back he goes back to the US a hero oh wow okay great segue to the Austrian wine Scandal which again we’ll summarize you have to get the juicy

Details in the book but in 1985 um uh certain small group I think of venters were adding uh an ingredient I don’t know if it was an ingredient of anti antifreeze or it was confused with antifreeze or both um it certainly wasn’t lethal except in extreme amounts

But tell us um what they were adding and why they were doing it so you need context of what’s happening in Austria at that time people have been planting a lot of vines because you know they’ve been told that there’s going to be this huge market for Austrian wine doesn’t

Materialize um and said they’ve got these big yields lots of grapes not making very nice wine and there’s a taste at this time for sweet wine uh and they’ve been told there’s been a law being changed that they’re not allowed to you know they’re not allowed to add

Gly they’re not allowed to add glucose anyway a sweetening agent anymore and somebody who’s feeling inventive deci find discovers that they can use a thing called diethylene glycol which is an antifreeze antifreeze is actually ethylene glycol but somebody in the media Department who wants to make a sensation some somebody in the news

Department of some magazine or newspaper or television station media gets the gets the I know media R and it’s journalists get get get the compound confused and suddenly it becomes the antifreeze Scandal which it isn’t uh but um yeah they adding basically this diethylene glycol it plumps out on why

It’s it’s kind of like making it’s like kind of like what sugar does to a wi it plums out it makes it richer just a lot more lovely and easy easy to drink uh you know if you go in Germany or Austria you can have some real high acids in

Your wine it can just you know smooth any any creases out wow but it wasn’t lethal did it have any sort of dilus effect or it was just um an illegal ingredient like that was the the main problem with it well it wasn’t it it was in large

Quantities not good for your health okay but in small quantities yeah I mean it’s not going it wasn’t going to kill you in small quantities in very large you’d have to drink to be honest you’d have to drink an awful lot of wine and pretty alcohol poisoning would get you before the

Diethylene glycol would get you but you know the story breaks and you know media gets hold of it and people don’t really know what the effects are so it becomes a big big a big Scandal and there are a lot of there’s a lot of con conern

There’s a lot of there’s a lot of misinformation but as a result the Austrian wine um scene is just devastated by it huh yeah you say import or exports dropped 90% and didn’t recover for 16 years which is incredible what a damage to their reputation it is

A huge damage to the reputation I mean you also have to look at the but I mean taking that with a pinch of salt as well exports have never been massive for Australia like it’s always Austrian wine has been traditionally drunk by austrians before it happened and it’s

But but for exports and exports were really to begin with were like Germany and Switzerland so okay often German speaking places but you know since but in the in the last I think you’ll probably agree that what you’ve seen in the last 15 20 years what comes out of

Austria now is worthy of oh yeah more often than not is worthy of Michin star restaurants there’s a lot of very fun one coming out of Austria now they fantastic really turned it around the quality is amazing so did they do anything else the austrians in apart from fixing the issue and improving

Their quality and perhaps implementing new laws was there anything else they did to recover their reputation well I think the new laws were sort of the big they became very stringent okay um people went to prison ah yeah a lot but a lot of people went a

Lot of people went out of business after in the late eight in the late 1980s because of the Scandal just sales just absolutely went off I think it’s taken it’s taken a really long time for Austria to come back but yeah stringent wine laws have really sort of pulled it

Up by its britches yes absolutely well uh the sign uh the flagship white wine gruner vleer and even the light Reds are superb food wines I mean I I recommend them all the time and they they have what’s working against them is I don’t think so much the memory has faded at

Least for new consumers of that Scandal but it’s just hard to pronounce these names don’t know where they come from like they still have a lot of marketing they have to do I think and consumer awareness but they are doing it for sure yeah I think so too I think that I think

Gruno Vina and and weaseling are great I love the I love the purity of them they’re dry styles and at least they put the at least they the great variety on the label true which is helpful have the crazy pric cats level they don’t you don’t have to start looking at cabinet

And spit laser and truck and bearing house laser you just left scratching your head all the German classifications um okay so let’s keep going in our little speed Boo Here U one of the most famous counterfeit uh wines involved a bottle of Thomas Jefferson from Thomas Jefferson’s seller now this wasn’t

During that time but it was much later I don’t know if it’s the ’90s or when it happened but it it subsequently resulted in a book called The Billionaire’s vinegar which um might be made into a movie but how did this fraudster get away with this he was passing off a

Bottle very expensive bottles as belonging to the former US president how did Hardy Roden star get away with yeah pulling the wool over people’s well well I think we can look at Hardy Roden stalkers um his real name was Mard gerker and he was like a minor

Pop band folky folky German band manager but he loved wine and he he became part of the German fine wine scene he was a real part of it and there’s no doubt that a lot of the wines that he brought to dinners and a lot of the wines he

Shared were were actually the real deal um he but then he kind of I think he took things too far perhaps it’s that ego thing that we see in the mice um acronym that we talked about earlier I think that you he gets he starts to find

All these treasures and people are like oh where’s he got this from but people are being like Shadow owners like the owner of shatow Kem fine wine L of Fine Wine people were backing him and saying this is the real deal and Christy’s at Christy’s um auction house they sold his

Wines they sold this bottle Thomas Jefferson bottle for a world breaking amount to to you know to Malcolm Forbes um how much was it uh it was something like it was over £100,000 and it took and it took less than two minutes to sell it it was oh my

Goodness it was it was it was crazy at the at the time this is you know this is fairly you know 30 years ago so that’s a lot of a lot of money at the time and it goes on display in Fifth Avenue anyway how does he how does he manage to dukee

People for so long he’s just he’s he’s he’s verment that he’s in he’s in the right he’s he’s very um he’s not a nice man if you dare question his authority and he had the backing of you know he had the backing of chrisy they said the wines wereth

Yeah they were authentic and I think this this is a big problem the wine industry has faced in a long time it’s a Well we haven’t had the technology or the knowhow to call out fraud and and there’s sort of when you’re in the wine trade you might know everyone Everyone

Likes everyone else to to the to to Mo most of the exent most of the extent but there’s sort of a chumm within the wine industry yes and there’s an element of trust that you what you’re giving me is correct and I think that the wine industry has traded off tra off trust

For too long and it has come to um come to the realization that perhaps there needs to be more um scr needs to be more scrupulous I forget which US president was but trust and verify I don’t know if that was rean or who it was but uh yeah trust and then verify

But um yeah so he um he finally got found out um how was he discovered did he finally get discovered though because oh did he Well he kind of well he did he didn’t but he to The Bitter End well he a Court ruled a Court ruled that you

Know he was yeah a Court ruled eventually like after 25 years that yeah he there was there was misdoing there was that he was he had committed he’ committed for he didn’t turn up to the hearing and he’s he kept flatly denying it he never went to prison like you he

Never paid his he never paid any any any money in reparations but he did go to jail or prison rather yeah okay okay no he no it just then this is the problem there have not really been the the rewards are high and the risk is has

Been quite low no one had been no one had been jailed for Winford until R Rudy Kier W um and that’s that’s 2013 off the top of my head um yeah so he commits this fraud I think he he loses face he loses face and he falls out the wine scene

But yeah he he never kind of goes way and that there there was always a qu and there was always this question mark over him uh he died recently but there was there’s always been this big question mark over the veracity of the wines and will we ever truly

Know right right and you mentioned uh his um nextdoor neighbor in the Hall of Rogues here Rudy keran the H of Rogues I like that wine Rogues yes please do um he had a taste for the high life um he was another fraudster he actually if I’m

Quoting you correctly ran up a credit card bill of $6 million at one point and a large chunk of it was was it Versace or some other high-end designer Hermes yeah Hermes oh yes yes yes yeah he he he wed up some great credit card bills on

On amch so you’d got a lot of points wow not good though if you can’t use them from jail but um no not so much um but no he was yeah he you mean he’s definitely I I call him he called The Great Gatsby I call him The Great Gatsby

Of wine my book he want a bit like the Harley Ren stock he gets he starts buying up wine he gets himself a reputation he he ingratiates himself with the fine wine circles the guys who go to the um auction houses he he um he socializes in highflying circles

People’s not have any OS to find out dining he talks about wine he’s seems quite knowledgeable people have people start trusting him H so it’s a good basis to start committing fraud from absolutely um people Lov to be in his company and he was quite generous in Sharing both

Real and fake wines but he got found out for a um Bordeaux I think it was a ponac wine what happened what what was his mistake ah yes no it was Lauren Pono it was a 199 Lauren Pono from burgundy yeah okay so yeah he um he got he basically

That’s when things were starting to unravel for him uh there were I think there’s a there’s a wine Forum called wine Berserkers yes uh that I don’t frequent um for person just yeah I don’t go on it it’s high wine cires for men men I haven’t seen any women on there

Recently or any in fact um so yeah it’s it’s a circle for wine collectors and and there there was starting to be people were starting to question him and going how did he get his hands on this and such like and then but then he put

Up for and but lots of auction houses were still taking his wine and they were still auctioning them off and you know wine authenticators were authenticating people Sellers and they were finding a lot of wines that they bought from Rudy curly one by a that had been gone through auction houses

Supposed selection process and they turned out to be fraudulent but yeah it was a bottle of it was some Lauren por so they hadn’t started domain bottling yet in 1929 so it couldn’t have existed so Lauren Pono flows over to New York to go you know what’s going on you can’t

You can’t sell this one by auction CU it doesn’t exist I think that in Rudy’s words um excuse my French but he says you know [ __ ] sometimes [ __ ] happens he was created as saying and you know that’s not really a good enough response

Is it and no the FBI were on his case at this time and uh yeah finally they raided his house his Californian house early one morning and it was kind of like a grow house but for wine it was you said it had like cheap heaters and there was bottles on

His treadmill and labels everywhere it just sounded like a yeah he was really he was really caught red-handed it was like a clim up controlled house he was living there with his mother and they were only in their bedrooms that was the only place where there were heaters and

Bon treadmill they found recipes for like uh 1945 M Ros Shield re and recipes stamps wax yeah they called it I think the FBI the the guy the FBI agent in charge called it sort of a a modern day wine Factory wow wow wow wow and that’s

So funny it usually is those small details that will trip up the criminals um I forgot to ask you or mention back in the Austrian antifreeze yeah what was what actually broke that Scandal what was one ventner trying to do yeah just so silly he put He put the diethylene he

Put an inordinate quantity of diethylene glycol and he tried to claim the tax back on it and his and his account wondered why he had so much yeah it’s usually accounting that will get you either that or vintage that’s how they get all the gangsters or the yeah the mob

Um um so your your stories rais an important question as as you yourself uh say in the book what makes a wine truly authentic U does does is yeah you raising your hand for those who can’t see her um yeah is there anything that

Comes to mind in terms of I mean I guess a wine is what it says it is could be one definition but you know we talk about terar and soil and climate it’s signature of the place and all this sort of thing are we fetishizing all of that yes

Yes yes we are no I think that we this is a history of wine fraud and what is deemed authentic in Roman times is not necessarily what we or some of us might consider authentic today it really dep it really often it depends who you are

What country you live in what period you what period you’re alive in you know if you’re or if you’re a ventor you’re a v if you’re a grow great are you’re a grap grower you’re a ventor you’re a wine consumer a wine merchant you know that

Can alter what you think is an authentic wine your attitude towards making wine whether you you know I don’t want to talk about natural wine but it has to be said you know some people who follow natural wine movement that they grapes organically they think that only grapes

Should be in it and and wildy should take hold and that is all that should be in wine that’s what they consider natural wine that’s what they think is truly authentic I you know that was how people made wine in Roman times and that’s why they added herbs and Lead salts and

Honey to the wine because it tasted foul you know we’ve come to a a certain place in our life now in our in our evolution of science that we can make wine that tastes good and can be kept for a long time so that we can expect a wine that tastes

Pleasurable does it it’s where it FR it is what it is that on the label some people think that you know Hing sulfur dioxide in in wine to help preserve it to stop it from anti from microbial infection is wrong don’t agree with them you know we do people do ad people

There’s there are just two it’s just so many shades of what you might think is authentic and yeah it really differs from person to person I think we’ve all probably have our own we have our own opinion on that yeah it is it is a spectrum from the puritanical to the the

Fraudster and where do you find self uh fitting in the middle somewhere yeah and I think there’s also there’s also another debate here though that if you are a fraudster and someone is drinking your bottle of 94 imagine you’re drinking a bottle of Ky ones 945 rard

Well they said it was two parts cost desel one part chat Palmer and one part so one part um high-end nap cabinate now do you know what if I I I most of us can’t afford to drink Costel or you know Palmer I’m like that sounds like a

Pretty tasty delicious drink to me you know if if you have a bottle of that and you don’t know you have it and you drink it and you think it is the real deal are you a victim right Poss question are you are you a victim if you don’t know that

You’ve been duped and you’ve had the sublime experience of your life and you feel satisfied and you talk about it with your friends yeah is there any crime I mean technically yes but still yeah and you know what if you drink a if you drink a you know doesn’t there a the

8515 rule in wine that you know if you say your wine is 85% shurz uh it can have 15% something else in it so if you’re thinking think you’re buying a bottle of shurz and you think it’s 100% sh do you feel do you feel duped not really but

You probably don’t know the laws anyway so it doesn’t make any difference to you if you enjoyed the glass of wine wine is going a br pleasure that’s ultimately what myok is about wine is meant to bring pleasure people have committed fraud in the past because wine wasn’t

Pleasurable but wine you know most people can make pleasurable wine today without doing anything dodgy right or you know you know you drink a bottle of bord and it’s a blend of varieties you know is it any less pure because it’s Merlo cabinet and cabinet Fran yeah

There are so many things to think about laws laws have like sort of embedded that that that’s okay but is it yeah yeah yeah yeah no that’s great I love the bigger questions that arise from these stories they fantastic um yeah I’ve SP I’ve spent years thinking about

These and I’m think that you can keep on thinking about it and you can change your mind every time that you discuss it and that’s what makes it interesting so it’s okay to keep going back and forth yes um so what modern technology today is being used to deter

Fraud lots of things are being used to deter BR I mean as I said in the last in the last sentence I was talking about this you know if you’re drinking a 205 $20 bottle of wine you shouldn’t like in you bought it in a wine store an oral

Supermarket you’re like there shouldn’t really be any reason why you know there should be any fraud you know there’s really no reason to do it but um but there like at the high end now where you can pay thousands of dollars for a bottle of high end why you do want to be

Assure that what is in that is what it says it is so you know um Shadow Margot and bordo on the Left Bank they have um they’ve taken it the taken to the extreme and they have like vintage specific bottle molds so you know oh yeah every every B the bottle changes

Every vintage but there’s a specific mold yeah huh W that’s costly yeah well you know you know it’s not a $10 bottle of wine is it though true yes they have the margins they have the margins I don’t we we’ve all like if you’ve been at the shatow and you’ve seen the fancy

Things there you know you’re not worrying too much about their uh profit margin and then there’s things like laser etched bottles there’s QR codes and there’s like some in some bottles know you can get like um underneath the the capsule you can get like um there’s

Like a seal that you can break and if if it’s broken and if there people try to refill the bottle like that specific bottle they they know that the seal has already been been broken on that cuz there’s there’s it sends a message back it’s like a chip or something yeah it’s

Like a chip so you that but like there’s but a lot of the wine authentication is actually done by wine authenticators in like you can get you can hire wine authenticators these days um and they have I mean they just have an encyclopedic knowledge of the fonts that

Were used and all the labeling and such like on the on the bottles that’s not that is not my domain right there are who can do that people who authenticate if you have a serious wine collection then yeah but if you’re going into a wine store and you’re buying a bottle of

Wine and you have a trusted wine much and just relax yeah I really yeah just take it easy Life’s too short but yeah I’ve heard um they’re even developing like Bitcoin like ledgers and nfts and things like this to track the life cycle of of a bottle from when it leaves the winery

To you know it’s entire Providence the way it travels through different owners or retailers wholesalers and so on so I find that very fascinating where this is all going it is fascinating and but we don’t know where it is going and we don’t know whether the technology that

We’re using now will be totally Antiquated in 10 years time sure so it’s all yeah it’s once again there are no there are you know it all depends and there no like like K is all when you go to a French when you go to a French

Vineyard and you ask a question they’re like and you’re like no I really just want to S answer yeah just tell me um all right so you have a bottle of wine there it’s the real deal uh what wine do you have with you Rebecca I hope

So I got it direct I got it direct from the winery it was to me unless there was some tampering by the The Courier Service on Route no I have bought today a bottle of deette okay clo books from V so at the moment I’m taking tasting a

Lots of shen and Blanc for for vinners um and it has a link to my favorite book that I also have brought along ah which is wine and War wine and War it’s quite it’s quite old now I mean da and Petty cladr right 2001 is published yes that’s

A fascinating book again focuses on the stories of the people behind wine especially during the war yeah exactly and so there’s a little link here cuz I love shanan and I feel that it’s underrated and I and I and I and I cover the L Valley um that’s one of my sort of

Areas and there’s this story in wine and War about geston uet now during World War I World War II he was a prison of war and he was a prison of German prison of War for five years and then he comes back to his Vineyard and during V all the horses have been

Requisitioned and um they had no they had no fertilizer no pesticides The Vineyards were to The Vineyards had been just devastated by disease and such like and he when he turn when he came back to V he eventually got back to V he lost a third of his body weight he was a

Skeleton he he’d hadn’t met his daughter who was five six by the time he got back wow and they rebuilt the they buil rebuilt the The Vineyards and have become just one of the most that they’re just the wi’s a total thorough and they are an absolute icon for me V and chanan

Blanc wise oh wow and so what does that particular one taste like you’ve got it in your glass there so yeah it’s a demi SEC now like Demi’s also coming around everyone wants dry wines these days and everyone goes o it’s sweet it’s sweet it’s only just sweet and it’s puff it’s

Great for it’s great for food pairing and I just love it and what would you pair with it um everyone goes spicy food but I think it’s just delicious with I think it’s just delic delicious with creamy sauces there’s a lot of and there’s a lot of um dishes that we have

With like slight sweet elements whether it’s like a honeyed element we add sugar to our our things and I just think it’s just great for that and it’s just you know what it’s also just delicious just drinking on its own on its own yeah pleas what I love about what I love most

About the houet wines is that is the what is that they have this sweet they’re sweet they have this sweetness element but they’re not rich they are they’re like drinking it’s like drinking a cloud a very delicate Cloud there’s no there’s no weight to these wines so

They’re so delicate and they just like float along the drink of the Angels or the gods it’s it’s pure it’s just but such such incredibly pure pristine fruit and I think that it shows that and do you know what everyone I think that when you’re in a cool climate like the W

Valley spite climate change you’ve got this amazing acidity and you do need a little bit of residual sugar sure to provide a balanced wine and when a wine is balanced you don’t even think about sugar and I think that you know people should there are a lot of people in V at

The moment who are really obsessed with making dry wines because the market demands them but they’re often unbalanced yes I well you know and the old adage we we talk dry and drink sweet we get a lot of pleasure sweetness is the first taste we developed in life and

There’s no shame there’s a lot of wine shaming going on about people who like an off- dry or sweet wine they’re just very pleasurable yeah it’s your it’s pleasure it’s it’s your it’s your glass it’s your mouth drink what you want it really is just what you enjoy

It’s it’s no it’s nobody else’s business absolutely amen all right that that puts us right into the lightning round Rebecca oh gosh I’m this don’t worry oh no don’t worry um Describe the word describe the weirdest wine pairing you’ve ever had yeah you don’t know or there have been

So many strange ones in your life I Lally I literally H I literally cannot I cannot give you an answer to that I I have thought about it did you ever pair any sort of fast food junk food anything like that or know what or just you stick

To meat and potatoes do you know what I do I don’t really care about food and wine pairing that’s a terrible thing to say I don’t I I I think we I think we focus on it too much and I really fa and it just it just makes me it just makes

Me stressed um I I don’t like to get stressed I’ve already got enough stress in my life to add o wine pairing just makes another stress and um I think that we should also do what the Egyptians used to do and suggest wines for celebration like wines for event like if

It’s wines for um it’s wines for certain periods in your life so wine for dancing wines for your tax tax return what would you suggest for the tax return I’ll I’ll keep it in mind for next year Cort something really 20% alcohol which just get you through it yeah exactly maybe a

Bitter sweet finish um depending on your return of course but um okay fair enough um and you you’ve already talked about your favorite wine book so we’ll skip right over that wine and water which is great we will put a link to that and of course

Your own book um has there been a useful wine Gadget that you’ve come across you told me I couldn’t have a car and you told me I couldn’t have a weight as C through can I have a glass yes you can have a glass very useful you are

Allowed that the next person can’t but you can do you have a favorite wine glass uh the one that’s nearest to me okay yeah you it looks like what that is not I’m trying to Guess the Brand there is that I have I have a lot of rals when

You pass they send you an inordinate amount of um free wine glasses oh well one of the perks after you spent 10 $10,000 on getting your certification you free glasses yes to that cheers now if you could share a bottle of wine with any person outside the wine

World living or dead who would that be and where would you take them or meet them do you know what I’ve always really wanted to meet Bill Bryson the author oh really the author yes sunburnt country and then he wrote about Britain too didn’t he yeah a small island oh that’s

It yes exactly I I saw him I saw him in um King’s cross Station in London he walked like he literally walked past me and I was like I’m sure that’s SP bison and I didn’t know what to do I was B Star Struck and I um about 2 minutes

Later I was like just go and ask him if he wants to go for a pint with you so I turned around and tried to find him and he”s gone anyway so yeah Bill he writes a great story and I think that’s one

Just such a gift he is a uh he is a wonderful writer in fact he’s one of my Inspirations whenever read about W because he’s all about the people he’s all about the storytelling he’s got a lovely sense of humor um and yet you know you find out surprising things that

You might mention at a dinner party or whatever he really he he um I don’t know he’s able to touch all the senses and enliven uh everything about his stories I just I love his approach absolutely yeah um and which bottle of wine would you share with Bill or would it be a

Pint I guess a good old British Pint P of Bri P maybe it could be an English sparkling wine sure yeah the next best thing to a point excellent now Rebecca this has been fantastic as we wrap up our conversation is there anything we haven’t covered uh

That you’d like to share uh so the book’s out in October in the and Canada and it’s available on Kindle it will also be available um it will also be available as a pod it’s going to be available as an audio book all right and

Are you reading it I am not reading it it’s been it’s been published by a company called podium in the US and they have a do you remember I don’t know whether you ever watched I didn’t but do do you ever watch the series Lost um yeah the first the first series

The first season mhm well as a British actress who is who was in Lost who is voicing it so very good know what I’ve never done it I did quite fancy it but I just I simply don’t have the time right now so but and she’s a professional so

I’ll let carry on absolutely I hope she pronounces all the French words properly good luck to her yes and yeah and what else um and where can we find this book online uh online yet the usual begins with a end also name of a famous rainforest in the

South in South America um yeah El good book stores um it’s published by University of California press if you got any um you’ve got any questions or you want to read more about it you can go on the University of California press website or mine which is Rebecca gi.com

I didn’t make it fancy you know it’s fairly simple um yeah and we will put all those links in the show notes and in the uh the uh live stream chat here um Rebecca it’s been wonderful um don’t log off but I really appreciate your time the stories are amazing I loved your

Book uh we just skipped along the surface um so people do have to get this book if they really want the the juicy Insider stories um but thank you thank you for spending your time with us and for for writing this book it’s a pleasure thank you all right cheers for

Now okay bye okay bye bye