Event name
Documentary Discussion: "Sour Grapes"
When
Tue 09 / 25 / 2018
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Where
Private Address, please log in to see more
Who can attend
Members only
Limited Capacity: 5 spots available
Price
FREE
Organizer
Barbara Fowler
Rudy Kurniawan, a rich Indonesian wine-collector with an interest for wine, and specifically Burgundy, spent millions of dollars buying wine, which he then sold. Acker Merrall & Condit, an auction company, broke records by selling $35 million worth of Kurniawan's wines in 2006. In 2008, they held a sale at a Manhattan restaurant promising the wines to be authenticated by "some of Burgundy's most discerning connoisseurs." The sale featured bottles of Domaine Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis from the years 1945, 1949, and 1966, but an estate proprietor revealed that the particular wine offered had not been produced until 1982. The FBI raided Kurniawan's house in Los Angeles and learned that he collected empty bottles and refilled them with cheaper wine and forged labels. In 2014, Kurniawan became the first person in the United States to be convicted of wine fraud as a crime, and he was given a 10 year sentence by a New York federal judge. Kurniawan has declined interview and press talk for the documentary, since imprisonment.