We would have dinners and we would have tastings and we’d have auctions, and he was just part of the crew that we ran with. He would drink local wines like Screaming Eagle, but then passion led him to jump coast to coast, going to auctions in Los Angeles and New York City. He started out like many wine drinkers in Southern California. Rudy lived with his mother in a Los Angeles suburb named Arcadia. It was a Thursday night event and everybody would go, and it was such a small industry that we were all friends. It used to be that before every auction we’d have a pre-auction tasting, and that was a fun event, and people would walk around and sample the wine. Wine auctions in New York only became legal in 1996. In the early 2000s, wine auctions were becoming more and more popular. She was already recognized as a skilled sommelier and worked her way up the hospitality industry at some key New York City spots that you may have heard of, such as Lespinasse, Felidia, and Tavern on the Green. Maureen met Rudy when she was working at the auction house, Morrell & Company. So Rudy was funny and nice, and he was a geeky wine interested guy. I remember there was a dad with a kid and the kid was only 12 years old and he would bid, and after that, Rudy was the next youngest guy. Rudy had a new obsession, fine wine, and soon the world would see how obsessed he was. His eyes landed on the most expensive bottle, a $300 Opus One. He was eating dinner with his family and perusing the wine list. He was sitting at a restaurant in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. The story he would tell his friends is this.
That’s when Rudy Kurniawan took his first sip of fine wine. The sunglasses were tiny, jeans were low, and a free-ish Britney Spears was pumping out hit after hit. This week on Vinfamous, how exactly did he get away with this fraud for so long? Where might he be now and who are the real victims of this kind of deceit? To answer these questions, let’s go back about two decades. And there is one crime you may have already heard of, Rudy Kurniawan and his multimillion-dollar cellar. So as you know, this podcast covers wine crimes and scandals. We uncork tales of envy, greed, and opportunity. You are listening to Vinfamous, a podcast from Wine Enthusiast.
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