DRC having a split personality
The biggest surprise at the wine fair is a Pompaddy Conti, which among many flagrant problems has some sort of identify crisis.
Fashioned exactly the same as Domaine de Romanee Conti in Burgundy, the fraudster obviously wanted to pander to both Bordeaux drinkers and Burgundy lovers. The solution as they ventured is to label the wine as both a Bordeaux Supérieur and Burgundy Premier Cru (as shown in the image below).
The blend in the wine is not exactly a combo we see from Bordeaux or Burgundy either, as it says the wine uses Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc on the back label.
What’s stunning about the wine or in fact a haul of fakes at the fair is that they appear to come from the same distributor – Shanghai Feidisi Trading Company, the same company that was at the center of the biggest counterfeit Bordeaux wine operation as we have reported.
The Shanghai Feidisi’s legal representative surnamed Yu is the same person as the owner of Shandong Shunyi Wine Company, which produced counterfeit Bordeaux red wine, Shunyi Lifei, with a glossy back story that conjured up a fictitious war with the first growth Chateau Lafite Rothschild in 1755 and a fictional Baron Shunyi.
The shared legal representative likely means the two companies are in fact connected and it acts as both the producer and distributor.
