Maureen in the news

[AKR]

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/f ... n-the-case

She even gets a picture in this.

[JimHow]

Interesting, thanks for posting.
In additions to the billionaire's vinegar and Rudy, what have been the next biggest wine fraud scandals and prosecutions?

[DavidG]

Thanks Arv, fun read. I like Maureen. Met her briefly after one of her talks in DC.

This quote about rare and expensive bottles and why it’s often hard to know if they’re fake, from Joshua Castle, sommelier at Noble Rot, struck me as odd: “If you put a bottle of this stuff online, it’s going to go for top dollar, and the buyer might even drink it.”

Imagine that, the buyer might even drink it! I guess drinking it has become secondary to showing it off or using it as evidence in a fraud investigation.

[AKR]

"trading sardines, not eating sardines"

[JimHow]

How big is the problem of fraud in fine wine?

Is this a myth?

I've heard of:

1. Four bottles from some guy named "TJ". Duh. Okay, the Rodenstock guy raises eyebrows. Whatever happened to him? Did he go to prison for 15 years? Did he go to prison for 15 minutes? Surely he must have, there was a book written about the incident. oh wait....

2. A dude named "Rudy," who some of us had the "pleasure" of meeting... Okay, sounds like he was the real deal, did his 6 years in federal prison, and is no doubt living in extreme luxury right now as I write this, somewhere in Jakarta or who knows where...

3. And then there are ALL the anecdotes.... The Koch cellar is 20% fake, our own Claudius tells us about how all of Asia is built on fakes, fake watches, fake paper towels, etc., etc...

Okay, these are GREAT anecdotes.

I'm sure there are fraudulent 1947 Chevals and 1961 Petruses.... No doubt.

But anecdotes just don't do it for me....

I was talking to MichaelP once, and he thought Maureen is way too conservative in her edicts as to what is "fraud," that bottling practices were much more lax well into the last century.

I'm inclined to agree with MichaelP...

I need some proof, not just anecdotes....

And don't talk to me about '47 Cheval Blanc....

I've been following Bordeaux for 25 years....

In my experience, I've seen virtually ZERO evidence of wine fraud...

We have an august membership here, tell me about at least some of what must be hundreds, no, thousands(?), of examples of "wine fraud" if all these stories are correct.

I have no doubt Mr. Ponsot was correct....

We have an incredible reservoir of top Bordeaux experts here.

Give me ONE example where you thought you's been faked?

I guess I'm easy to fool, but... even the 1997 Petrus handed to me in New York in 2003... by some diminutive, friendly dude named.. Rudy.. I have zero doubt was real... It was from the shelves of John Kapon himself, who was there that night as well.... Now if you want me to go on about THAT dude....

It must've been the summer of 1998... I had gotten wind that a case of 1995 Petrus had made its way into the New Hampshire liquor store system. I sped down to the main store in Nashua, where it was located. I'll never forget the woman putting that lone case on the floor, crackining it open, and saying to me: "How many do you want?" Like a fool, I told her I wanted just one... at $275 per bottle. There is ZERO doubt in my mind that the 1995 Petrus sitting in my cellar is the real deal, NOT a fake.

What, if it had been sold to one of the Koch brothers, that would be different?

Bottom line....

I think that "wine fraud," for the 99.9% most part, is a total myth....

I can't identify a SINGLE bottle I've identified as a fraud in a quarter century of tasting Bordeaux....

How many of Maureen's fraud investigations have led to criminal convictions for frauds that must be into the tens/hundreds or millions?

Besides Rudy, how many other people have been convicted of "wine fraud"?

[RPCV]

Interesting questions, Jim. I’ve been collecting for a long time and can’t really say I have seen or heard of any wine fraud with certainty. However, I have never been a chaser of the really hard to find/acquire wine.

[JimHow]

By the way, I thought Rudy should have gotten spanked for about 30 days in the local county jail (at worst), ordered to pay restitution, and ordered to do 100 hours of public service work at the Manhattan food bank of his choice. What a total fiasco that was. Ten years in federal prison... for THAT? Give me a break. Even Maureen was in disbelief at that, probably my favorite scene in the documentary, outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan. He did about 6 more years in prison than some of my worst convicted violent offenders. What a joke.

[gene m.]

Hell hath no fury than rich people being embarassed and shown to be fools. Especially when their sacred corner of their indulgence is defrauded and shown that the emperor has no clothes. Now go fondle your DRC and call your hedge fund manager

[greatbxfreak]

One thing that annoys me is how easy Rodenstock guy avoided jail for his efforts to make false bottles.

I had tasted a few bottles that seemed far too young in their appearances considering the vintage and also a few ones tasted more of south France like Rhone than Bordeaux.

[DavidG]

Jim, plenty of stories about wine fraud large and small are out there if you take the time to look. More than anecdotes. Some are well documented and reported. Both trophy bottles and every day stuff. If you care enough, you can take the time to find them. In addition, Don Cornwell has documented multiple examples of fakes being offered at auction. Just because it hasn’t happened to you doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.

That said, claims of 20% of wines being fake sound ridiculously overblown to me. I believe Ponsot once stated that 80%(!) of, was it Burgundy offered at auction?, is fake. I don’t believe those numbers.

Nor do I accept Maureen’s warning in the article that wine fraud has serious economic consequences outside of those defrauded. It’s not that big a problem. But it does happen.

As to saying tough shit to the victims just because they’re rich, I have to disagree. It’s not just the uber-rich who get scammed. And it’s not just rich people who get furious at being embarrassed and shown to be fools.

Should Rudy have spent 6 years in prison for what he did? Compared to some young black kid caught selling dope for the third time, he got off easy. I’d worry about fixing that before crying over a guy who stole millions.

[Musigny 151]

Rodenstock had an interesting methodology. The rumor was that he put better wines in the bottle that critics tasted, enabling him to sell stocks of the same real wine.

Maureen Downey may do a fine job, but she is the only person I have unfriended on Facebook. Her politics are extreme right, and then some, and the vitriol aimed at Obama was downright disgusting.

[AKR]

When one reads about Rodenstock, its quite amazing how he was able to keep up the fake production for so long, and how sloppy he was in concealment.

I'm not sure how to handicap the odds of getting victimized by frauds, but my general idea would be to buy on release, drink at maturity, and be circumspect about secondary market transactions. And of course, if one doesn't collect/drink the elite bottlings, there is much less incentive for anyone to scheme those up to begin with. If it takes just as much effort to fake a 1990 Latour as a 2016 Lagrange, why would the rational fraudster focus on the latter?

[JimHow]

Yeah, I feel comfortable buying the latest vintages when they hit the shelves in NH. Speaking of which, Gerry, March is European wine month, any deals out there?

[tim]

I've been to Maureen's wine fraud training. I've discovered more than one bottle of DRC in my cellar that was fake. It wasn't evident that it was fake until you put it under a microscope. If you know what to look for, the fakes become obvious. I've gone to auctions and discovered fake bottles when I put them under the microscope during inspection. I informed the auctioneer and they sold it anyway.

Yes, those are anecdotes. The problem is that unless you know how to test for fakes and put them to a scientific process, only anecdotes and individual cases can be investigated. There are a lot more fakes that we care to recognize.

I'd be happy to show someone what a fake looks like. To the naked eye, it looks real.

Fake wine is a real problem and one that cost me a lot of money personally. I would be willing to bet that anyone that has significant first growths bought on the market after release has at least one or two fakes among them, perhaps more.

[JimHow]

Timmy, my friend.
Everything in your last post would be thrown out, vomited out, in a court of law.
Give me names. Give me dates. If a wine is "faked," who faked it?
My $40 per hour private investigator easily investigates provenance... who sold to whom.. who sold to whom.

Give me some basic facts, I’ll sic him on the job.

Who was prosecuted for your DRC mishap?

There are a million anecdotes like yours out there on the internets. If you bought a DRC that was a "fraud," well, who did you buy it from? And who did he/she buy it from? And so on, and so on?

Frankly, gang, other than Hardy, Rudy, and a few '47 Cheval Blanc mishaps, I'm still waiting for the actual, um... EVIDENCE.

Accounting forensics experts trace back the source of money every day of the week.

Why, after 30+ years of supposed wine fraud, do we have ONE conviction, of some dweeb named Rudy?

With all these billionaire assets involved, surely there would be more Rudys in jail long before now?

Sorry, gang, not buying it. No doubt there is the VERY occasional anecdote of some dweeb who forged a non-existent '28 Petrus label, but the supposed avalanche of wine fraud that is supposed to be out there, folks, literally, in 25 years of drinking high end Bordeaux, I have yet to identify to you a SINGLE example of wine fraud. Nor, among the hundreds of BWEers with whom I have drunk these majestic wines, can I tell you of even ONE BWEer who has ever told me that he/she has been the victim of fraud.

Not buying it, sorry.

[JimHow]

Jim, plenty of stories about wine fraud large and small are out there if you take the time to look. More than anecdotes.

David... I love, you my brother...
You have drunk MANY thousands of very high end Bordeaux wines over the last 50 years...

Tell me your top ten wine fraud experiences....

Not what you THINK were fraud, but ACTUAL fraud...

Give me ONE....

[gene m.]

If I ran a vermin/hazmat remediation/extermination biz, of course I would tell you your cellar had rampant evidence of rats, termites in your wood racks, mites in your cork,lead in your capsules, voles tunneling into your stash, gnaw marks of raccoons and possums on your owc’s. There is also radon in your dirt and formaldehyde in your glued on fake labels

Heck I can sequence your wine or crispr and turn it over to the da. They love that sciencey dna stuff

Hell you can’t fault someone for promoting their biz when given a chance

I have no idea who the best fraudsters are but they are quite a draw on Netflix and tell-all stories. (Eg. inventing Anna, tinder swindler). People love that shit

I think don’s thread was one of the longest and best read on wineberserkers and it still gets posts/updates

Mo chimed in a bit to try to share the spotlight with Cornwell. They both seem to do good work but Kapon in still in business and premoxed burgs are a problem

[JimHow]

Ah I got it gene.
I don’t visit berserkers, is that what it’s called?
In the discussion there, is there reference to anyone other than some little dude named Rudy who has EVER been prosecuted for “wine fraud,” notwithstanding the 20% loss to the billionaires that must surely be in the hundreds of millions, if not billions?

Who, besides the dude from Los Angeles single-handedly peeling labels in his sink, has EVER — since TJ himself — been prosecuted for wine fraud? Surely the Koch boy and his bald, no-neck, “hard nosed” investigators <rolls eyes> have weeded out hundreds of these miscreants over now decades of ruthless <rolls eyes> investigation?

[gene m.]

The fraudsters are probably working both sides of the street. You gotta work the crowd if you wanna stay up

[JimHow]

Ha

[JimHow]

Rudy went to jail for 10 years.
John Kapon drinks DRC for lunch to start every day in midtown. Got it.

[Nicklasss]

Come on Jim, you know there are some fake bottles around.

The few (1 or 2) times the 1989 Lynch Bages lost against the 1989 Pichon Baron, it was probably faked 1989 Lynch Bages...

[JimHow]

You make my point, Nicola, it has never happened.

Seriously… other than little Rudy, can someone name ONE other person on planet Earth who has been prosecuted for defrauding 20% of the wine cellars of the world’s richest collectors. Surely there must be dozens, if not hundreds, of such criminals.

[Musigny 151]

You make my point, Nicola, it has never happened.

Seriously… other than little Rudy, can someone name ONE other person on planet Earth who has been prosecuted for defrauding 20% of the wine cellars of the world’s richest collectors. Surely there must be dozens, if not hundreds, of such criminals.

Yup. But not for faking wine,but running a Ponzu scheme with wine.
Barry Silver and the guy from Premier Cru.

[JimHow]

Indeed. Now those Ponzi scheme guys deserved to go to prison. I stopped buying from Premier Cru in like 2005 because as a layman just observing from afar without knowing anything more about their business I was saying publicly here that had to be fraud. That was like 8 years before he got charged.

I’m sure there is counterfeiting, especially in like those old bottles that Timmy and Francois have bought in auctions in Europe. Is this more of a European/Asian phenomenon? I don’t see any evidence of it in the US other than Rudy.

Mr. Ponsot said that it was impossible for Rudy to have faked as many wines as they thought he faked. Was there any evidence that ANYbody else helped him? It seems to me all these federal and private investigators would have found at least some evidence of that.

[Claudius2]

Guys
I think wine fraud is an occasional issue in most parts of the world and it is hard if at all possible to determine its extent as there is no guarantee that it will be either detected or reported in any volume.

Yet I can tell you with first hand experience that wine fraud is big business in Asia and particularly China and HK. A local friend distributes both in Singapore and HK and from HK, much wine moves to Guangzhou and other parts of China. He has on multiple occasions been offered large volumes of obviously fake wine. It isn’t just DRC, Petrus, Lafite et al. He was offered volumes of some well known Aust wines that were, err, greater than the total production and even mid level but well known wine. I’ve been a shareholder in various Aust wine companies and they are all well aware of it. For example, Penfolds wines are faked from lower priced bin numbered wines to Grange.

My contact claims that of the famous wines - classed growths Bordeaux, 1er Cru and GC Burgundies, top Calif and Australian wines, whatever - at least half sold in China and HK are fake. I have no way of verifying it but he has told quite a few stories about huge volumes of wine being moved thru Asia that it not explicable in relation to actual shipments from the respective regions.

I’ve been to HK and China many times. My experience is that the top restaurants and resellers are mainly above board and they are very cautious about scammers and fraudsters. Yet there are many distributors in China that from personal experience are knowingly selling fakes. In a region were most branded goods are fake, some degree of fake wine is understandable.

I have quite a good knowledge of Australian wines and I have personally seen obviously fake labels in several Chinese cities. Some labels are even misspelled. Just get your iPhone out and check the authentic labels and you will feel rather weird. One wine retailer I visited in Shanghai was holding many obvious fakes and had the audacity to “guarantee” authenticity. Whatever.

I have also learned that in most of Asia just about everything and anything can and often is fake. Even beer and bottled water is fake let alone wine. I won’t go on I always lose weight in China as I am eternally suspicious of the food and have various allergies and intolerances.

Cheers
Mark

[DavidG]

Jim, the love and respect are mutual, even though we come at this from different perspectives. You eschew anecdotes, yet you ask each of us to provide them while ignoring published reports of fraud. That’s inconsistent.

You use a courtroom analogy, suggesting that to believe wine counterfeiting is a problem we need proof beyond any reasonable doubt. The highest standard in the land. Not just a little doubt. Any reasonable doubt.

That’s unrealistic. This is not a criminal trial. It’s not even a civil trial where the standards are lower. It’s a conversation. A trial in the court of public opinion. OK, I’ll stipulate that the court of public opinion these days has no standards, and applaud you for holding us to a higher one. But beyond any reasonable doubt is… unreasonable.

Even if it were a criminal trial, we’re not convicting, we’re accusing. If you can indict a ham sandwich, why not a bottle of wine?

I have no personal anecdotes for you. Until the last few years, I bought only futures or on release, primarily to insure provenance. Not just to avoid heat damage, but to increase the likelihood of authenticity. I’ve started backfilling the last 3 years, but not trophies. Things like 1988 Lynch Bages, a wine a fraudster might use to create a fake (1989?), but not one likely to be faked. So I doubt I have any fakes in my cellar, but I can’t be certain.

I have no clue if I’ve been served fakes at tastings. As Tim says, they’re difficult to detect visually. And I doubt I’d be able to identify a well-made fake by taste, even if it was a wine I’m familiar with. The 12 Angry Putzes, who have a lot more tasting experience than I, couldn’t do it.

You don’t have to be a crime victim to believe it happens. Even if you live in a high-crime neighborhood.

I don’t believe that the number of fake bottles out there is anywhere near 20-25%. It’s been way overblown in some of the articles. But the risk is not zero. And it’s not just trophy wines. It’s also happened to mass market wines.

[JimHow]

That's probably a reasonable assessment, David. I'm sure it exists out there.
I wonder whether they are starting to fake '89 Lynch now that it is up to $595 a bottle!

[Musigny 151]

Twenty years ago, I saw pallets of Black Opal in a Chinese market place. I did buy a bottle because I was convinced it was fake, and sure enough, it was pretty revolting. When I got back, I tried a genuine bottle,which was far better. Margins though, if you put in crappy Chinese wine is around 300%. Multiply that by several cases, and it comes to real money.

[AKR]

Timmy, my friend.
Everything in your last post would be thrown out, vomited out, in a court of law.
Give me names. Give me dates. If a wine is "faked," who faked it?
My $40 per hour private investigator easily investigates provenance... who sold to whom.. who sold to whom.

Give me some basic facts, I’ll sic him on the job.

Who was prosecuted for your DRC mishap?

There are a million anecdotes like yours out there on the internets. If you bought a DRC that was a "fraud," well, who did you buy it from? And who did he/she buy it from? And so on, and so on?

Frankly, gang, other than Hardy, Rudy, and a few '47 Cheval Blanc mishaps, I'm still waiting for the actual, um... EVIDENCE.

Accounting forensics experts trace back the source of money every day of the week.

Why, after 30+ years of supposed wine fraud, do we have ONE conviction, of some dweeb named Rudy?

With all these billionaire assets involved, surely there would be more Rudys in jail long before now?

Sorry, gang, not buying it. No doubt there is the VERY occasional anecdote of some dweeb who forged a non-existent '28 Petrus label, but the supposed avalanche of wine fraud that is supposed to be out there, folks, literally, in 25 years of drinking high end Bordeaux, I have yet to identify to you a SINGLE example of wine fraud. Nor, among the hundreds of BWEers with whom I have drunk these majestic wines, can I tell you of even ONE BWEer who has ever told me that he/she has been the victim of fraud.

Not buying it, sorry.

This is the mentality the fraudsters love to see in their marks.

[JimHow]

Lol…
Maybe!
I’m surprised more people haven’t been caught.
I remember once I was at a Starbucks in midtown Manhattan. I gave the woman a ten dollar bill. She said, um, sir, this is a counterfeit. And it clearly was on closer inspection. And then, I thought, where did I get this? And I remembered that this cabbie out in Brooklyn had given me change the night before. Usually people know where they are buying wine from, and I can’t imagine there are usually large degrees of separation from the original counterfeiters before somebody identifies a wine as a counterfeit.

[AKR]

I think most victims (of this kind of crime) will just clam up, and try to resell the faked items on the down low e.g.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahlja ... 86c693ad94

That is actually totally rational for any one individual victim even if the best response for everyone collectively would be to pursue these crimes.

It's kind of crazy to be faking $10 bills (vs. counterfeiting larger denominations) but I suppose - as Musigny relates - that bad actors are working the lower ends of the spectrum too.

[SF Ed]

Here's the problem. A good amount of counterfeit wine gets identified (like Tim demonstrated). But once it is identified, what do you do?

If you identify counterfeit wine immediately after purchase and come after the vendor, they will usually refund the money in exchange for the wine and an NDA. That wine then can go back into inventory/auction for the next sucker but no one gets prosecuted. For that you need someone like Koch who probably spent more on legal fees than he lost on the fake wines he bought to see that Rudy got sent down. That is extremely rare.

Another problem is the supply chain. It is highly unlikely that Rudy was acting alone, and that anyone doing meaningful counterfeiting is acting alone. They need help sourcing physical materials (e.g. bottles, labels, blending wine, etc.) and even more importantly help getting counterfeit wine into vendors and auctions with "provenance". That involves both folks "laundring" the history and ownership of the wine as well as potentially complicit actors who at best look the other way and at worst know they are dealing in counterfeit wine.

There are a lot of reasons why few people have gone to jail in the US for fine wine counterfeiting (wine fraud generally is much broader), but it isn't because there is little counterfeit fine wine.

SF Ed

[JimHow]

It's kind of crazy to be faking $10 bills (vs. counterfeiting larger denominations) but I suppose - as Musigny relates - that bad actors are working the lower ends of the spectrum too.

Yeah I remember thinking the same thing, it seemed strange it was such a small denomination. I remember it was a really amateur counterfeit, like a photo copy of a ten dollar bill as I recall, something that should have been pretty easy to identify but was mixed in with other bills when he gave me change. And of course at that point there was little I could do about it, I barely remembered what the driver looked like, in the end I just threw it out and didn’t even report it… probably what most victims of wine counterfeit do.

[JimHow]

Maureen Downey may do a fine job, but she is the only person I have unfriended on Facebook. Her politics are extreme right, and then some, and the vitriol aimed at Obama was downright disgusting.

Yes Maureen is indeed right of Attila the Hun, probably her best friend here, ironically, is Comrade McCracken. She’s fun in person, though, I last saw her at Timmy’s birthday party in Bordeaux a few years ago, we had a great time (although I had a bad flu that night). One of those examples of where the online persona doesn’t necessarily match the in person experience. She really did do a great job in that Rudy documentary, as I said my favorite part of the movie was at the end when she was standing outside the lower Manhattan federal courthouse with the two defense lawyers after the sentencing in disbelief at how badly he had gotten hammered.

[tim]

Timmy, my friend.
Everything in your last post would be thrown out, vomited out, in a court of law.
Give me names. Give me dates. If a wine is "faked," who faked it?
My $40 per hour private investigator easily investigates provenance... who sold to whom.. who sold to whom.

Give me some basic facts, I’ll sic him on the job.

Who was prosecuted for your DRC mishap?

There are a million anecdotes like yours out there on the internets. If you bought a DRC that was a "fraud," well, who did you buy it from? And who did he/she buy it from? And so on, and so on?

Frankly, gang, other than Hardy, Rudy, and a few '47 Cheval Blanc mishaps, I'm still waiting for the actual, um... EVIDENCE.

Accounting forensics experts trace back the source of money every day of the week.

Why, after 30+ years of supposed wine fraud, do we have ONE conviction, of some dweeb named Rudy?

With all these billionaire assets involved, surely there would be more Rudys in jail long before now?

Sorry, gang, not buying it. No doubt there is the VERY occasional anecdote of some dweeb who forged a non-existent '28 Petrus label, but the supposed avalanche of wine fraud that is supposed to be out there, folks, literally, in 25 years of drinking high end Bordeaux, I have yet to identify to you a SINGLE example of wine fraud. Nor, among the hundreds of BWEers with whom I have drunk these majestic wines, can I tell you of even ONE BWEer who has ever told me that he/she has been the victim of fraud.

Not buying it, sorry.

When I have time this weekend I will post the evidence related to how we determined the wine was a fake. I do not want to post the details of the wine purchase (it was purchased at auction several years ago) but happy to share offline. I have the original catalog that includes the name of the wine expert as well as my paid invoice from the auction detailing the lots that I purchased. The bottle still has the lot information on it. It is unopened.

Most of the rest of the questions you ask are related to tracking the original fraudster. That is likely impossible due to the secrecy behind wine auctions. The only line of defense we have in these auctions is the skills and willingness of the wine expert to avoid accepting fake bottles in the first place. And this is where the system fails. If you have purchased high end wines at auction, I would place a wager that at least one or two bottles are fake. Unfortunately, ignorance is bliss. Most people don't want to know they have fake wines because there isn't much you can do about it once you discover it.

[Musigny 151]

Sorry Jim, but sadly I have had a lot of fakes, as I used to go to a lot of high end tastings. The saddest was a Hermitage La Chapelle 1961. A good bottle was the greatest wine I have ever tasted, this one was filled with young Rhone wine. A magnum of 1950 was disgusting, a 1982 Lafite was completely wrong, definitely not Cabernet. Etc, etc etc.

Even amateurs can make reasonable fakes when they reuse old bottles. Look at the flourishing trade of empty bottles on e bay. I have come across two instances recently, a Roumier Bonnes Mares 1993 and a Ducru 1945. This is why Rudy used to insist on sending back his empties, so much easier if the label is already there.

Negotiant bottles are also prone to fakes as there are poor records of the label and in the forties, there were supply problems leading to some very weird variations. I have seen correct bottles from within a case with three different colored bottles, which I know to be correct.

Burgundy is also rife with problems. I have had a lot of bad luck with La Tache. Two bottles which should be life changing were filled with cheap Pinot Noir. And so on. I am sure in most cases people don’t know or don’t want to know their wine is fake.

[Musigny 151]

This deserves a mention. A guy brought a bottle of 1947 Petrus to Tru in Chicago. The sommelier opened the bottle, came to the table and whispered in the guy’s ear to go with him. He showed him the cork; somebody had written two buck chuck on the cork.

[Claudius2]

This deserves a mention. A guy brought a bottle of 1947 Petrus to Tru in Chicago. The sommelier opened the bottle, came to the table and whispered in the guy’s ear to go with him. He showed him the cork; somebody had written two buck chuck on the cork.

Err, I've heard the same story before though not always in relation to 47 Petrus.
I do think it is just an urban myth.
cheers
Mark

[AKR]

And all that time my F-i-L was drinking chucky buck, I thought it was dreck, but he was enjoying post war Petrus!