My Article: Fake Sassicaia 1985 in Macau

A friend was nice enough to pour me a bottle of 1985 Sassicaia during my stay in Macau. I was deeply touched, even honored, to have the chance to taste this Italian legend from the Tuscan wine estate of Tenuta San Guido.

The wine is usually a 100-point red. A blend of 85 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Cabernet Franc, it has an amazing depth of fruit and gorgeously refined and silky tannins. I have been lucky enough to drink it many times over my 30-year wine writing career – may be at least once a year. So I know it well.

Regardless, it’s always a treat to drink it. And I couldn’t wait as the waiter in the restaurant served the wine from a decanter. I think it had been decanted a couple of hours before I had arrived.

The wine had an intensely minty and stony character on the nose with lead pencil and currants. It was full and chewy with a slightly firm and drying tannin texture. I wanted to say it was a perfect wine. In fact, I even hastily tweeted it. But something didn’t seem in sync with what I know of the 1985. The 1985 is much more refined and intense.

So I asked for the cork. And sure enough, the cork read “1983.” The wine seemed like the more tannic and slightly rustic 1983.

I couldn’t really believe it. How could the label say 1985 when the cork was 1983? It even had a front label for the United States with San Guido’s US importer printed at the bottom: Koran. This means it originally came from America.

Who knows how it was done? Or who did it?

Someone certainly made some money out of the fraud. Just as an example, I used wine-searcher.com to see the current retail price in the United States for the 1985, and it is anywhere from $1,400 to $2,300 a bottle. The 1983 is about $200 to $300.

People speak a lot about fake bottles of Lafite-Rothschild in Asia, but plenty of others obviously exist. And the bogus bottles don’t always come from China.

SHARE ON: