How expert wine fraud detector Maureen Downey uncovers counterfeiters and is using blockchain to simplify authentication
- Maureen Downey is a top wine fraud detector, helping US law enforcement crack multimillion dollar cases involving Rudy Kurniawan and Hardy Rodenstock
- She is looking to expand her team of wine authenticators and will host workshops on the practice in Hong Kong on March 2 and 3
Maureen Downey still remembers the faxes she received at her first auction-house job from Hardy Rodenstock, an alleged counterfeiter who would later sell US$2 million worth of suspicious wines purported to have belonged to late US President Thomas Jefferson.
Rodenstock was inquiring about minute details of 1955 Chateau Gruaud Larose magnums, his favourite.
“He asked about the bottles’ measurements, the glass, what’s written on the lower left corner of the label,” Downey says. “That was the beginning of my systematic approach to wine authenticating. I was taught by a counterfeiter.”
A graduate from Boston University, Downey is a self-educated wine expert and one of the industry’s best known fraud detectors.
Her knowledge is vast and diverse: she learned about glass from American artist Dale Chihuly and paper from a conservationist at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She has worked in restaurants and auction houses.
Eventually, her name reached the ears of American law enforcers – including the FBI and the US Department of Justice – who sought her expertise in cracking two infamous cases involving Rudy Kurniawan, who sold fake wines for US$1.3 million; and Rodenstock.
