Taiwanese Billionaire Tied to Scandal Involving $30 Million in ‘Mythical Vintages’ of Fake Wine

A fake wine scandal is rocking Taiwan’s elite, and it all links back to a billionaire. (Photo: Maximilian Schönherr/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

Decanter reported on Wednesday that a fake wine scandal rocking Taiwan’s elite all links back to one of the country’s richest individuals. The country’s news outlets have been abuzz — pun intended — with news that some of the country’s elite have been apparently purchasing the equivalent of NT$1B ($30 million) in fake wine.

The outlet reported that the two merchants wealthy oenophiles purchased the vintages from were Top 100 Wine and UMC. The owner of Top 100 Wine, Huang Huihong, is reported to have agreed to take returns of the “fake” vintages. When asked how he came into contact with the counterfeit bottles of vino, he claimed to have purchased them from an individual named Wood Chen.

Chen is a billionaire, reported to have earned his fortune overseeing the Yageo Corporation, a successful electronics company. A known lover of all things food and wine, Wood Chen amassed quite a collection and would often take to selling bottles to specialized merchants.

Chen’s wines would make appearances at tasting dinners, and hackles were raised at a recent tasting when the wines tasted suspiciously similar, Decanter reported. After some called out the billionaire’s wines, Chen defended their reputation to the country’s press.

“You cannot conclude that all the wines are fake from one tasting session,” the billionaire expressed. “Only three or four out of 11 bottles at that tasting session were from my collection, and it’s uncertain if those wines were from me.”

Chen claimed that having a few bad wines in a collection is “normal,” and that it’s “impossible for all wines to be perfect.” But he claimed being tied to fraudulent wine was “excessive.” He also claimed that if wines were served at improperly high temperatures they might taste the same.

This bit of news might not be very welcome to Chen’s brother, Pierre, who happens to be auctioning off a major wine collection at Sotheby’s.

The collection of fine Burgundy, labeled according to the Drinks Business as “mythical vintages,” featured several bottles of Domaine Romaneé Conti, some of the most prized bottles of wine in the world. It was titled “The Epicurean’s Atlas,” and Decanter reported in early July the collection broke several world records. According to Decanter, Sotheby’s expected to receive $50 million for the collection.

Yet the auction house maintained its certainty on the authenticity of the collection.

“We have full confidence in the origin of the bottles we are selling from Pierre Chen’s collection,” a Sotheby’s Spokesperson said, according to The Drinks Business. “The wines are sourced from Mr. Chen’s dedicated professional storage in the UK and Hong Kong and have been stored independently throughout their ownership. Furthermore, the origin and source of each of the wines that we are offering in our consignment from Pierre is known to us, with most having been previously purchased from the most reputable named single owner sales at Sotheby’s or direct from the domaines and agents themselves.”

Sotheby’s claimed the wines were thoroughly inspected by the auction house’s team, with “industry-leading authenticity procedures.” Sotheby’s additionally tapped wine identifying expert Michael Egan to further assess the provenance of the vintages.

Yet it’s possible that very soon, technology will be the exclusive component in identifying wine fraud. In December, scientists shared that they trained artificial intelligence to identify counterfeit bottles of wine using a technique called gas chromatography.

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