Kurniawan Rudy

The Indonesian-born wine merchant Rudy Kurniawan (*1976) is considered the "largest and most successful wine counterfeiter in the world". In a trial in New York, he was proven to have counterfeited wine worth 20 million dollars. He was therefore sentenced to eight years in prison on 8 March 2012. Kurniawan had entered the USA at the end of the 1990s on a student visa and became the world's most sought-after dealer in rare old luxury wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy. Initially, comparatively inexpensive old Burgundies from small vineyards and small wineries were mixed with young Pinot Noir wines from California. The auction he organised in 2006, "The Cellar II", generated record proceeds of $24.7 million. Today we know that the majority of the wines were fakes. His speciality was large-format bottles from the 1947 vintage and wines from the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. This is why he was nicknamed "Mr 47" or "Dr Conti" in the scene.

To read the full text, you must be a Premium Member of wein.plus. You are currently not logged in to wein.plus. Become a Premium Member or log in with your credentials .

Become a Premium Member of wein.plus

Voices of our members

I have great respect for the scope and quality of the wein.plus encyclopaedia. It is a unique place to go for crisp, sound information on terms from the world of wine.
Dr. Edgar Müller
Dozent, Önologe und Weinbauberater, Bad Kreuznach

Welcome back!

Kurniawan Rudy

To read the full text, you must be a Premium Member of wein.plus. You are currently not logged in to wein.plus. Become a Premium Member or log in with your credentials .

Voices of our members

The world's largest Lexicon of wine terms.

EVENTS NEAR YOU