Wine socialists will hardly feel any sympathy for the embarrassment of wealthy individuals obsessing with old and rare bottles of wine and being duped wholesale by a fraudulent pretender. However, there is some excellent intrigue in this article and the whole story, or debacle, has to be the perfect script for the ‘next’ wine movie; a worthy apologue full of dark irony and humour blacker than cabernet sauvignon. Ideally my first choice for directing the film would have been Stanley Kubrick (RIP), but perhaps it would be Woody Allen who would best portray the absurdity and peculiarities and New York/American avidity and heteromorphic social climbing.

A standing ovation for journalist, Benjamin Wallace, for writing this piece and equally for authoring, ‘The Billionaire's Vinegar’, visit www.benjaminwallace.net/

For the full story ‘Why Rudy Kurniawan Was Arrested for Wine Fraud’ New York Magazine, http://nymag.com/news/features/rudy-kurniawan-wine-fraud-2012-5/