Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Anything to do with Port.
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g-man
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Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by g-man »

Apparently a big fiasco is going on

http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/vie ... =1&t=61172

repost from another site

but spectrum appears to be peddling a few of Rudy's wine.

I was at the acker's auction when this went on, and some of the bottles did look too good to be true.

As some port also sneaks it's way in, buyer beware.

This auction is held on feb 8th, 2012 at the madnarin oriental in hyde park, london
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jdaw1
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by jdaw1 »

The catalogue has Taylor 1945 (six bottles, lot 164) and Taylor 1977 (three dozen, lots 165 to 167), on logical page 172 (labelled as 170). Are they fakes? I don’t know. Might they go cheaply? I don’t know.
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g-man
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by g-man »

jdaw1 wrote:The catalogue has Taylor 1945 (six bottles, lot 164) and Taylor 1977 (three dozen, lots 165 to 167), on logical page 172 (labelled as 170). Are they fakes? I don’t know. Might they go cheaply? I don’t know.
the offline catalog apparently had pictures that clearly showed fakes of a few burgundies (ie the shipper name was spelt incorrectly)

Due to an uproar on a few other forums they removed a few of the offending pages.

But if the consignment really came from a particular seller, then yes very good chance these are probably fake bottles.
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Chris Doty
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by Chris Doty »

Most bizarre auction I have observed. Doubtless to gain more attention as the aftermath unfolds. Full coverage available here: http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/vie ... =1&t=61172

Also -- a list of all the lots that were removed at the auction ('on very good advice'):

Lot. 12 withdrawn
Lot. 17 withdrawn
Lot. 21 withdrawn
Lot. 30 withdrawn
Lot. 43 withdrawn
Lot. 56 withdrawn
Lot. 65 withdrawn
Lot. 66 withdrawn
Lot. 67 withdrawn
Lot. 68 withdrawn
Lot. 69 withdrawn
Lot. 70 withdrawn
Lot. 71 withdrawn
Lot. 72 withdrawn
Lot. 73 withdrawn
Lot. 74 withdrawn
Lot. 83 no lot.
Lot. 94 withdrawn
Lot. 99 withdrawn
Lot. 100 withdrawn
Lot. 101 withdrawn
Lot. 118 withdrawn
Lot. 121 withdrawn
Lot. 123 no lot
Lot. 124 withdrawn
Lot. 127 withdrawn
Lot. 132 withdrawn
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Alex Bridgeman
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by Alex Bridgeman »

Just spent a happy lunch hour reading through the posts - what fun. I notice that the T45 did not sell - but it was pretty expensive estimate. I wouldn't have been a buyer @ £600 per bottle!
Top Ports in 2023: Taylor 1896 Colheita, b. 2021. A perfect Port.

2024: Niepoort 1900 Colheita, b.1971. A near perfect Port.
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by uncle tom »

I wouldn't have been a buyer @ £600 per bottle!
Especially as it appeared to be a cobbled together stash from different cases, with at least one bottle having been to California and back...
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by Roy Hersh »

I have no dog in this race, but can say that although Rudy had a pretty prolific wine CV prior to the scandal five years ago, I very seriously doubt his collection contained any Port wine. I was not happy that on the other port site, one of our posters alluded to the Ports at that auction house possibly being linked to Rudy and that is pure speculation, actually just a fabrication and unless there is a single shred of evidence (which there is not), I think it is unfair to the Spectrum/Vanquish wine auction business (which I have never bought from).

So although IF I was an auction buyer, I'd avoid Burgundy bottlings there like the plague, I am quite confident that there is nothing to worry about with their Port offerings (at least not in re: to Rudy or his shill).
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RAYC
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by RAYC »

I don't know a lot about the back story, but Spectrum's failure to reveal this man's connection to a large number of the wines that were originally for sale in the auction does not seem to be entirely honest.
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by g-man »

Roy Hersh wrote:I have no dog in this race, but can say that although Rudy had a pretty prolific wine CV prior to the scandal five years ago, I very seriously doubt his collection contained any Port wine. I was not happy that on the other port site, one of our posters alluded to the Ports at that auction house possibly being linked to Rudy and that is pure speculation, actually just a fabrication and unless there is a single shred of evidence (which there is not), I think it is unfair to the Spectrum/Vanquish wine auction business (which I have never bought from).

So although IF I was an auction buyer, I'd avoid Burgundy bottlings there like the plague, I am quite confident that there is nothing to worry about with their Port offerings (at least not in re: to Rudy or his shill).

The fact that both domaines did step in and issue a warning caused the auction house to reply along the lines of 'we've tried our best to catch fraud but how would we know we were fooled' leaves me with very little trust that this auction house even cares if what was consigned to them is real or not.

The bottom line is, if you can't trust what appeared to be 2/3rds of the lot being offered, what amkes you think you can trust the port also being offered?

I'd avoid all business with this auction house going forward like the plague.
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by Andy Velebil »

As posted in :ftlop: Roy and I disagree on this...and I have actual first hand knowlege of Rudy as I've shared wine with him..
I'll disagree as Spectrum has done a good job of avoiding where many of the wines have come from, specifically. By all accounts from Don Cornwell, who spoke first hand to one of their Consignment Directors and was flat out told where many of these wines came from and even the concerns of selling these wines from that same consignment director.

I too have drank with Rudy on more than one occasion and yes he is very generous and has an amazing palate. That said, he bought a ton of stuff without looking closely at provenance and no doubt ended up buying many fakes along the way. I don't think, although I could very well be wrong, that Rudy has himself faked any wine. But his cellar has been proven to have plenty of fake or very suspected fraudulent wines. For Spectrum to take in ANY wines from his cellar at this point, given all the past issues with his wines, is very irresponsible to say the least. I do know Rudy has some old Ports in his cellar, as he told me first hand. However, I have no idea if any of those ended up in this auction or not. Regardless, I personally would buy no wine from any auction that contained wines consigned from Rudy or consigned by another on Rudy's behalf (which appears to be the case in the Spectrum auction).

I also should point out, at the last minute MANY lots were withdrawn from that auction today.....
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by Andy Velebil »

g-man wrote:
The bottom line is, if you can't trust what appeared to be 2/3rds of the lot being offered, what amkes you think you can trust the port also being offered?
.
Exactly!

While it's a shame that other people who've consigned wines to this auction are being lumped together with the Rudy wines, it's really Spectrum's fault for failing to disclose where these wines came from knowing the prior histories. If I may, here is Don's full account of what happened and how he found out about these belonging to Rudy. It's quite telling to say the least....
Since Mr. Boland's post calls my credibility into question, and Spectrum has declined to answer any of the questions many of you have posed regarding his "denial," I wanted to assure everyone there isn’t a shred of doubt about the fact that the wines in question were consigned by Antonio Castanos on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan and that Spectrum was and is well aware of the fact that the bottles came from Rudy.

My contact at Spectrum is one of the three persons with a title of Consignment Director. My contact is someone that I’ve known for 25+ years in the wine industry. This is an individual who has attended wine tastings that I’ve hosted in the past. I omitted a lot of the detail about my conversations with this individual because of his concerns about what his management might do to him once the story came out. Now that Mr. Boland is trying to deny (albeit with a negative pregnant denial) that Rudy is or ever was a consignor at Spectrum, I need to set forth the balance of the story that I omitted in the first post. As I said in the first post, the consignor on the paperwork is Antonio Castanos, who consigned the wines on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan.

Here is the rest of the story which I omitted in the original warning post No. 1:

I called my contact on Friday in order to confirm the information about Antonio and Rudy that I had heard from several sources and to report that there was a large laundry list of problems with the DRC wines (and they were the only ones I had had any time to look at), which together meant to me that Spectrum had to pull the wines and stop the sale. One of the people I have been working with on this had reported that another industry source he knew well had had direct communications with an unnamed contact at Spectrum, who had said that the wines were consigned by Antonio Castanos, and that Mr. Castanos was known to be acting on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan. I contacted the ‟Consignment Director” because I was confident he would be honest with me and I frankly couldn't imagine that he ever would voluntarily allow Spectrum to have anything to do with Rudy Kurniawan. I believed that once The Consignment Director knew that the word was out about Rudy’s involvement, he would be able to convince Spectrum to stop the sale.

I called Spectrum mid-afternoon on Friday and was told The Consignment Director was out for the day. I told the receptionist that she had to reach him, that it was urgent and that it concerned the upcoming sale in London. The Consignment Director called me back about two hours later, just about 5 pm local time. I told him that I had information from multiple sources, one of whom had allegedly gotten his information directly from Spectrum, that the consignor for the Feb 8 sale was Antonio Castanos, who was acting as an agent for Rudy Kurniawan, and that the wines in the Feb 8 sale were Rudy's wines. I told him that I was first alerted to this when two burgundy collector friends of mine on the East Coast saw the catalog and called it to my attention, and that every one of us concluded that it must be Rudy based simply on the items in the catalog which matched other bottles sold in the past by Mr. Kurniawan. I also told The Consignment Director that after doing just a few hours of due diligence looking only that the DRC wines, I already had a long list of lots on which there were obvious discrepancies and problems casting doubt on the wines’ authenticity.

The Consignment Director then unequivocally confirmed that yes, Antonio Castanos was the official consignor, that he was acting on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan, and that Spectrum was well aware that the wines belonged to Rudy. He explained that he had vigorously opposed Spectrum having anything to do with Rudy or his wines but that that he had been "overruled by management" on that issue. He then explained that he had made sure that he was unavailable to do any of the vetting of the lots for the sale, and that his only direct involvement in the sale was to write up descriptions of the wines for the catalog.

I told The Consignment Director that I had looked at the catalog and had spent about three hours doing due diligence -- just on the DRC wines, although I certainly had my doubts about the usual assortment of 45 and 61 Bordeaux with labels with zero oxidation that looked like they might have been printed yesterday. I told him that even with only three hours of work I already had a long list of problems with the DRC lots. I told him that I wanted to go through the list with him verbally, and that I would follow up and send him the list in writing, but that given the problems and given that Rudy was involved, Spectrum had to stop the sale of Rudy's wines and that I wasn't going to take no for an answer.

The Consignment Director told me that he personally agreed, and again reiterated that he had opposed the sale from the outset but had been overruled, and that he would now have to run the issue up through Spectrum's management of course.

The Consignment Director then asked me to give him a list of the lots with problems. When I was about three-quarters of the way through the then-existing list verbally, he interrupted me and said "you don't know the half of it" and then told me that Spectrum had removed so many bottles from the consignment because they were either outright fakes or clearly suspect that the removed lots would have added "more than a third" to the total lots in the auction. My impression at that time was that all or virtually all of the lots in the auction were coming from Rudy except for those disclosed to be directly from Chateau Palmer. The Consignment Director told me later that evening that Rudy ‟wasn't the only consignor” in the sale.

After I finished up the verbal list of discrepancies, I told The Consignment Director that I was sorry we were starting this process on a Friday afternoon, but that he was going to have to get to his management and get an immediate decision because I wasn’t going to wait while his management stalled for time. I told him that if necessary I would blow the whistle publicly to tell the wine-buying public about the fact that Rudy was trying sell wines again and that Spectrum was knowingly doing that without disclosure. The Consignment Director urged me to wait until I heard from his management. I said that I didn’t intend to wait because we were only four days away from the sale and I related that when Rudy had last auctioned wines with Christies in October and November of 2009 several of us had confronted Christies with the information and documentation that we had put together concerning that sale, and demanded that they stop the sale of Rudy’s wines, but that Christies had stalled and stalled and then told everyone late the day before the scheduled sale that they had elected to proceed. By that point it was too late to get a warning out to people. So I told The Consignment Director that I wouldn’t make that mistake this time and that unless Spectrum immediately agreed to stop the sale I was going to make sure it was disclosed on Wine Berserkers and to alert people I knew in the UK, like Jancis Robinson, who might be able to get a warning out to people there.

As I was about to hang up, The Consignment Director said he had another call on his cell phone that he had to answer and that he would have to hang up and call me right back. He did so about two minutes later and then told me that I would be getting a call from James Boland the President of Spectrum in the next few minutes. He related that Mr. Boland was ‟an IT guy” and that he ‟really doesn’t know anything about wine.” I promised that I would finish typing up my list of the discrepancies found so far and I would email it to him. I sent him the email at 6:03 pm.

I patiently waited several hours for Mr. Boland’s phone call and just before 10 pm I called The Consignment Director back on his cell phone to tell him I’d heard nothing from Mr Boland. He told me that Boland was on a plane to London to attend the sale and that he would call me after he’d arrived. I told him that I wasn’t going to wait because I knew what the story would be -- I’d be told Mr. Boland would have to discuss it with his staff, his Board and the company’s lawyers and that he would get back to me. And then I would hear from him the day before the sale that Spectrum had concluded that the sale should go forward as scheduled and once again there would be no opportunity to warn the prospective bidders about Mr. Kurniawan’s involvement and the big list of problems with the wines in the auction. I told him I wasn’t repeating that mistake and that hopefully, after the word got out, Spectrum would be motivated to do the right thing and stop the sale. It was at that point that The Consignment Director told me that there were ‟other consignors” in addition to Rudy who had wines in the sale.

We said good night, but then The Consignment Director called me back about two minutes later. He now began expressing concerns about his name being mentioned in a Wine Berserkers post. He followed that comment up with a request that I say nothing about any conversation with Spectrum about Rudy being the source of the wines, as he was concerned about what his management might do when that was disclosed. I explained that I would do my best to avoid naming him but that there was no way I could avoid disclosing that Spectrum had confirmed the involvement of Antonio and Rudy because the key question every reader would have would be whether the information was confirmed or just speculation. But I told him that I would try to avoid naming him and to minimize the details about my conversations with him in the post and would initially limit my comments to the fact that an unnamed employee at Spectrum had confirmed that Antonio Castanos had consigned the wines on behalf of Rudy Kurniawan.. The Consignment Director said he would have to come up with some kind of ‟back story” to protect himself with his management. He thanked me for offering to keep his name out the post and we said good night.

I then proceeded to post the warning on the Wine Berserkers site that you have all seen. At 8 am on Saturday morning I was awakened by a call from Mr. Boland, which I described in the thread.

Hopefully, this will eliminate any doubt about the wines belonging to Mr. Kurniawan and Spectrum’s knowledge of this fact.

To be clear, I assume but do not have any direct evidence to support my belief that the individuals at Spectrum shared their knowledge of Mr. Kurniawan’s identity as the owner of the bottles in question with their ‟partners” at Vanquish. The law imposes a fiduciary duty between partners which would require them to communicate such material facts to each other and the law would also conclusively presume such communications took place in performance of that legal duty in the case of a claim brought by a third party against either partner. Similarly, the law conclusively attributes the knowledge of the agent to the principal and vice versa, in cases dealing with third parties. Most importantly, it would be impossible for Spectrum and Vanquish to properly vet the wines, let alone to do ‟an elevated inspection process by our experts” without knowing who the owner of the wines is, how the wines were stored and how/when the wines were acquired.
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dcs
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Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by dcs »

I bought some Port from Spectrum last year. The payment and pick up of the wines was difficult to say the least. I've bought wine at auction in the middle of Wales and imported it to the US and that was much less painful than this auction house... that is in my own state! The good news is that the wines were in outstanding condition! (1963 Grahams and a case of 1994 Vesuvio with the bottles still wrapped in the branded tissues!)

Now as for fake Ports... I think that they are exceedingly rare. There are too many much more expensive wines that could be counterfeited. The occasional wine that I see that is not as described would not be a fake, but instead mislabeled. This is due to missing labels and capsules and reliance on bin labels/markers and in some cases the inability to see the through dark glass for a branded cork.

I'm sure there are some fake Ports, but I can't recall ever seeing one.
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by g-man »

dcs wrote:I bought some Port from Spectrum last year. The payment and pick up of the wines was difficult to say the least. I've bought wine at auction in the middle of Wales and imported it to the US and that was much less painful than this auction house... that is in my own state! The good news is that the wines were in outstanding condition! (1963 Grahams and a case of 1994 Vesuvio with the bottles still wrapped in the branded tissues!)

Now as for fake Ports... I think that they are exceedingly rare. There are too many much more expensive wines that could be counterfeited. The occasional wine that I see that is not as described would not be a fake, but instead mislabeled. This is due to missing labels and capsules and reliance on bin labels/markers and in some cases the inability to see the through dark glass for a branded cork.

I'm sure there are some fake Ports, but I can't recall ever seeing one.
unfortunately with wine, due to various things like bottle variation, and just not knowing what the wine should tastes like assumes a leap of faith that people dont bother faking ports.

But just last year, people were caught faking a 5$ jacob's creek in the UK.
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Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by dcs »

Right! Who knows what a 1966 DrRC R-C really tastes like? And from various unknown storage situations... only a few people can say. How about 1966 Graham's VP?... Even I have the experience to make an educated call from various bottlers.
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by g-man »

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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by g-man »

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 2791831150

rudy found guilty of wine fraud

guess you can have a great palate when you know what you put in the bottle =)
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by LGTrotter »

I remember reading somewhere that there were more cheap wines faked than there were expensive ones. Gman's point is also a pertinent one. I would have thought that port would be a lot easier to fake up than old burgundies.
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Re: Upcoming Auction @ Spectrum/Vanquish

Post by djewesbury »

See Tom's post about tonight's experiment.
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