Keeping Fake Bordeaux Out of a 6-Million-Bottle Wine Cellar
With so much bogus wine in circulation, Berry Bros. employs a full-time expert on counterfeits.
Philip Moulin pries the lid off a wooden crate and removes a bottle of a 2000 Bordeaux that can fetch $10,000 per case. But Moulin has neither corkscrew nor decanter in hand. Instead, he scans the label with a digital magnifying glass and grunts with satisfaction when he finds a strand of microscopic letters spelling out “Chateau Margaux” repeatedly in an image of the winery’s grand estate—an indication that the wine is authentic.
Moulin is the in-house detective at Berry Bros. & Rudd, a 321-year-old wine merchant that stocks the cellar at Buckingham Palace and stores more than 6 million bottles for collectors. With counterfeit wines proliferating amid soaring prices for prized vintages, his job is to prevent fakes from landing in the company’s cavernous warehouse 50 miles west of London, where the temperature is maintained at a constant 53.6 degrees F.