Rudy Kurniawan made a splash when he hit the high-end wine scene early this decade. Using family money, he quickly amassed so many rare specimens that he purchased the Wine Hotel, a wine storage and retail store on Third Street. The Los Angeles Times chronicled his lavish lifestyle of exotic cars, designer clothes and luxurious dinner parties.
But some wine connoisseurs believe Kurniawan is selling high-priced counterfeit wine.
In a legal tussle fit for the ultra rich, Florida billionaire William Koch filed a lawsuit this month in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming Kurniawan sold him five bottles of counterfeit wine for $77,925 in 2005 and 2006.
Brad Goldstein, a spokesman for Koch, said representatives of the billionaire met with Kurniawan in Los Angeles last year in an attempt to discover the origin of the wine. “We gave Mr. Kurniawan every opportunity to cooperate with us, to help us, but he refused,” Goldstein said. “We believe he refused because he’s part of the problem.”
Kurniawan did not return requests for comment.
This is not the first time Kurniawan, whose family reportedly owns businesses in his native Indonesia, has been linked to bogus wine.
A 2007 New York Times article about wine fraud details a New York auction where Kurniawan’s private holdings sold for almost $24.7 million – but came with an unusual 90-day guarantee designed to protect against fraud. According to the article, several wine experts suspected the bottles were counterfeit, though the allegation was not proven.
And according to Koch’s lawsuit, Kurniawan has had multiple instances in which he allegedly tried to sell counterfeit wines, including at a 2007 Christie’s auction and a different auction in 2008. In both cases, the lawsuit said, the houses stopped the sales.
Counterfeit wine became a problem only in recent years when the price soared, with some bottles of Bordeaux and Burgundy bringing in tens of thousands of dollars.
“There wasn’t enough money in wine until the last decade for it to be worthwhile,” said Martin Weiner, who’s been appraising wine for more than 40 years and founded the Los Angles School of Wines in West Los Angeles.
