EVEN STEVENS: INVESTMENT
Too Good to be True Steven Lack issues a warning about legendary wine bought on the cheap. Words STEVEN LACK Photography FIONA ROYDS/INFIDELS
Do you know your wines’ labels well enough to identify possible counterfeits? If you don’t see this neck label on a bottle of Bordeaux Grand Cru Classe, don’t buy it! ‘HOW MANY PEOPLE out there truly know what a bottle of Mouton ’45 should really taste like?’ This was the question recently posed to me by a friend. Had you enjoyed such a bottle yesterday, the answer to that question would quite simply be: ‘None.’ An exquisitely elegant bottle of Palmer ’61 from the Margaux appellation in Bordeaux − famed for being one of the top five wines ever produced in Europe’s long and colourful history − is a living product changing constantly in the bottle, and which today may have different characteristics to those displayed yesterday. This is part of a great wine’s character and, with so much personality jam-packed into one bottle, a second is always called for. Google Château Mouton Rothschild 1945 and you’ll find it for sale from merchants the world over ranging in price from $500 to €30 000 per bottle. Well, why pay €30 000 a bottle for this treasure when you can have a bottle or six – or a case, or thirty thousand – for a mere $500? The answer lies on William Nicol Drive in Johannesburg, where you can shop until you drop for all the Louis Vuitton, Breitling or
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Montblanc your heart desires − and find better craftsmanship and quality in your new Vuitton bag for the bargain price of R300 than you’ll find in a bottle of Mouton ’45 purchased for $500. Of course, you pay for what you get and what passes for fake on the Nicol strip has a counterpart in fine wine. A scrupulous printer in Canada was once asked to recreate the famous label for Mouton Rothschild 1973 designed by Picasso. Finding this request to be dubious at best, he alerted the authorities, who raided the warehouse of the distributor in question only to find 30 000 cases of counterfeit Mouton Rothschild. In addition, from a supermarket’s warehouse in China, 200 000 bottles of counterfeit Mouton Cadet were seized, so even at the $5 per bottle mark, a market for counterfeit wines exists. Château Latour has pioneered the practice of microchipping every bottle in every case and every pallet shipped around the world. Château Ducru-Beaucaillou has placed a hologram on the label in their efforts to protect the true identity and authenticity of their wines. The French government has 20 dedicated officials, spending approximately €20 million annually
to combat the problem. The problem knows no borders. Thousands of counterfeit cases of one of Australia’s three greatest wines, Penfolds Grange, were discovered in the US and identified as such after the word ‘poured’ was misspelt on the back labels as ‘poored’. Moreover, the drinkability of these very old vintage wines rests solely and exclusively on the quality of their cellaring over time. Distributors the world over may purchase rare and old vintage wines wherever they find them. Bottles of Bordeaux’s greatest may find a torturous way home, but none of them travelling first class. A bottle of Lafite Rothschild ’29, Margaux ’83 or Sassicaia ’85, with all their potential greatness, will fail the travel test after spending 10 years on the wine rack right next to a pizza oven in Brooklyn, New York. The only question to ask when buying wine for thousands of rands is: ‘Where did it come from, and before that, and before that?’ If you can’t trace it back to its humble beginnings at the château or estate, then don’t buy it. Provenance and traceability are the key elements. Know who you’re buying your wine from, and always know who they, in turn, are buying from. Santé.