Nobles Crus claims mar Baghera sale

Concerns over the provenance and authenticity of several lots of Burgundy have clouded the results of Swiss auction house, Baghera Wines’, latest sale, with claims much of the consigned Burgundy was sourced from failed wine fund, Nobles Crus.

Lot 1 – a mixed case of 1978 DRC which Cornwell claims to be highly suspect. Among other discrepancies he notes that the gold ‘Leory’ label was only ever used on bottles of Montrachet, never the reds.

The new, Swiss-based auction house conducted only its second sale in Geneva at the weekend, a sale dominated by over 1,000 bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

The sale made CHF 6.2 million in total, CHF 4.2m of which was made from the very large consignment of Burgundy. Baghera Wines said before the sale and repeated to the drinks business that the DRC collection had all been stored at the Geneva Freeport since they were bought and that they came from the collection of a single, Swiss collector.

In an increasingly predictable pattern, shortly before the sale LA-based lawyer, Don Cornwell, posted on the Wine Berserkers forum that there were serious doubts about the provenance and authenticity of several lots being offered.

Cornwell pointed out that 19 lots were, in his judgment, either “outright counterfeit or which fail to conform to known standards for those wines and thus should not in good conscience be sold and should be withdrawn.”

He added a further 30-40 lots, especially some older Yquem vintages, were the cause for “serious questions”.

He said that an exchange between him and Baghera’s director, Michael Ganne, hinted already that the wine came from at least two collections not one and stated quite clearly his belief that the great majority of Burgundies at the sale “come from a failed Luxembourg wine fund known as Nobles Crus.”

Nobles Crus suspended trading in 2013 due to lack of liquidity and was fully liquidated by the duchy’s government in 2014.

The wine fund was a well-known repository of enormous quantities of DRC and other fine wines, including a great deal of older vintages. However, most of them were entirely unauthenticated.

Cornwell added that two persons had informed him the wines came from Nobles Crus cellars, including an authenticator who works for another major auctioneer.

The latter said the same collection had been offered to ‘his’ auction house for sale in 2015 and had been rejected.

Cornwell wrote: “A formal inquiry was made to the auction house and the wines were compared. The confirmation quickly came back that yes, indeed, the wines in the Baghera auction catalogue are the very same wines.”

Most of the wines Cornwell regarded as suspicious were Romanée-Conti from DRC. They included lots of 1978 Romanée-Conti, 1988 Romanée-Conti, 1952 Romanée-Conti, 1960 Romanée-Conti and 1966 La Tâche.

There were also lots of Rousseau he described as 100% fake, notably bottles of 1919 Rousseau Grand Chambertin Vieux Plants where he points out that Rousseau did not own these vines until 1920.

Another bottle of 1969 Rousseau Charmes Chambertin he called “a Rudy Kurniawan bottle”, with an off-centre red and black label with completely incorrect numerals which he notes are “a hallmark of Rudy’s Rousseau creations”.

According to the Independent, “five or six” lots were withdrawn from the sale as a result of the allegations. Ganne said in a statement to the paper: “We take the protection of our customers’ interest very seriously.

“I am sure that the overwhelming bulk of the lots will prove to be genuine. If there is any doubt at all, the sale will be nullified.”

The news is reminiscent of the Dragon 8 sale in Hong Kong last year, another auction where provenance and authenticity came to the fore and where several lots were withdrawn as a result.

Cornwell’s full breakdown and analysis can be found here.

Baghera Wines has been contacted for comment.