Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidden by law in some jurisdictions but such an offense is not related to forgery unless the tampered legal instrument was actually used in the course of the crime to defraud another person or entity. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations.
Beaujolais is a French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) wine generally made of the Gamay grape, which has a thin skin and is low in tannins. Like most AOC wines they are not labeled varietally. Whites from the region, which make up only 1% of its production, are made mostly with Chardonnay grapes though Aligoté is also permitted until 2024. Beaujolais tends to be a very light-bodied red wine, with relatively high amounts of acidity. In some vintages, Beaujolais produces more wine than the Burgundy wine regions of Chablis, Côte d'Or, Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais put together.
White wine is a wine that is fermented without skin contact. The colour can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold. It is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the non-coloured pulp of grapes, which may have a skin of any colour. White wine has existed for at least 4,000 years.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a French wine, an Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) located around the village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the Rhône wine region in southeastern France. It is one of the most renowned appellations of the southern part in the Rhône Valley, and its vineyards are located around Châteauneuf-du-Pape and in neighboring villages, Bédarrides, Courthézon and Sorgues, between Avignon and Orange. They cover slightly more than 3,200 hectares or 7,900 acres (32 km2) and produce over 110,000 hectolitres of wine a year, more wine made in this one area of the southern Rhône than in all of the northern Rhône.
The Mâconnais district is located in the south of the Burgundy wine region in France, west of the Saône river. It takes its name from the town of Mâcon. It is best known as a source of good value white wines made from the Chardonnay grape; the wines from Pouilly-Fuissé are particularly sought-after. Almost all the wine made in the Mâconnais is white wine. Chardonnay is the main grape grown in the district—in fact, there is a village of that name in the far north of the region. Some plantations of Gamay and Pinot noir are made into red and rosé Mâcon, making up no more than 30% of the total wine production. Gamay is grown in the Beaujolais cru of Moulin-à-Vent, which extends into the Mâconnais, but has little in common with the wines north of the border.
Wine fraud relates to the commercial aspects of wine. The most prevalent type of fraud is one where wines are adulterated, usually with the addition of cheaper products and sometimes with harmful chemicals and sweeteners.
The glossary of wine terms lists the definitions of many general terms used within the wine industry. For terms specific to viticulture, winemaking, grape varieties, and wine tasting, see the topic specific list in the "See also" section below.
William Ingraham Koch is an American billionaire businessman, sailor, and collector. His boat was the winner of the America's Cup in 1992. Forbes estimated Koch's net worth at $1.8 billion in 2019, from oil and other investments.
Richard Miles Berman is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Georgia is one of the oldest wine-producing countries in the world. The fertile valleys and protective slopes of the South Caucasus were home to grapevine cultivation and neolithic wine production for at least 8000 years. Due to millennia of winemaking and the prominent economic role it retains in Georgia to the present day, wine and viticulture are entwined with Georgia's national identity.
Romanée-Conti is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, France, with Pinot Noir as the primary grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée and is a monopole of the winery Société Civile du Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which takes its name after this vineyard. Romanée-Conti borders on La Romanée in the west, Richebourg in the north, Romanée-Saint-Vivant in the east and La Grande Rue in the south. The AOC was created in 1936.
Meinhard Görke, known as Hardy Rodenstock was a German publisher and manager of pop and Schlager music, and a prominent wine collector, connoisseur, and trader, with a special interest in old and rare wines. He became famous for his allegedly uncanny ability to track down old and very rare wines, and for arranging extravagant wine tastings featuring these wines. It has been alleged that Rodenstock was the perpetrator of an elaborate wine fraud. In 1992, a German court found that Rodenstock had "knowingly offered adulterated wine" for sale. On appeal, the case was settled out of court.
Counterfeit consumer goods—or counterfeit, fraudulent, and suspect items (CFSI)—are goods, often of inferior quality, made or sold under another's brand name without the brand owner's authorization. The colloquial terms knockoff or dupe (duplicate) are often used interchangeably with counterfeit, although their legal meanings are not identical.
Vougeot wine is produced in the French village of Vougeot in Côte de Nuits of Burgundy. The Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) Vougeot may be used for red and white wine with respectively Pinot noir and Chardonnay as the main grape variety. A characteristic of Vougeot is that most of the commune's vineyard surface is taken up by its single Grand Cru vineyard, Clos de Vougeot, which at 49.86 hectares is the largest Grand Cru of Côte de Nuits. Of the rest, most is classified as Premier Cru, leaving village-level Vougeot wine a rare occurrence, mostly restricted to a small area of flat land immediately to the east of the N74 road, but inside the commune.
The 1985 Austrian diethylene glycol wine scandal was an incident in which several Austrian wineries illegally adulterated their wines using the toxic substance diethylene glycol to make the wines taste sweeter and more full-bodied in the style of late harvest wines. Many of these Austrian wines were exported to West Germany, some of them in bulk to be bottled at large-scale West German bottling facilities. At these facilities, some Austrian wines were illegally blended into German wines by the importers, resulting in diethylene glycol ending up in some bulk-bottled West German wines.
La Paulée de Meursault is a lunch celebrating the end of the grape harvest in Burgundy, France. Originally, the celebration included only winemakers, cellar workers, and the surrounding community. It has since evolved to become an international wine event, and an integral part of Les Trois Glorieuses, which also includes a charity auction held at the Hospices de Beaune and a formal dinner at the Clos de Vougeot. Approximately 700 people attend the lunch, held in the Château de Meursault.
Rudy Kurniawan is an Indonesian convicted criminal and perpetrator of wine fraud.
Domaine Ponsot is a wine producer in Burgundy, France that produces white and red wine. They are best known for their Morey-Saint-Denis Blanc 1er cru Clos des Monts Luisants — the only premier cru Burgundy made entirely from Aligoté — and their flagship reds, the Clos de la Roche Cuvée Vieilles Vignes, and the Clos St. Denis Cuvée Très Vieilles Vignes. The domaine's wine was famously counterfeited in the Wine Auction Scandal that resulted in Rudy Kurniawan's arrest.
Jerry Rothwell is a British documentary filmmaker best known for the award-winning feature docs How to Change the World (2015), Town of Runners (2012), Donor Unknown (2010), Heavy Load (2008) and Deep Water (2006). All of his films have been produced by Al Morrow of Met Film.
