Avenue Vine

Ian Smith is owner of Sacramento wine bar 58 Degrees & Holding.

"It's a major issue for the wineries as well because they want their wines to be well represented and want people to have a good experience with it," said Smith.

The wrong wine in the right bottle could mean a tarnished reputation and a loss of future sales.

"There's always been little scams in the wine industry," said Sammy Hagar.

To his fans, Rockstar Sammy Hagar is known more for his music and his own brand of tequila. But Sammy's been collecting wine for more than 30 years.

"I have about 10,000 and it's all good stuff," said Sammy.

He's also got a special case for taking some of his favorite California wines with him on tour.

Sammy says he came close to being scammed when he recently bought what he thought was a case of '59 Margaux.

"They had broken down some big formats at the chateau, supposedly, rebottled them in and put new labels, new corks, new everything, but those weren't original bottles," said Sammy.

Sacramento attorney Jeb Burton recently bought some expensive wine to impress a friend.

"I absolutely expected something much better. Uh, it was disappointing," said Burton.

"I bought a half a case of it, and they were all counterfeit. It was Bordeau Lafite Rothschild from about 15 years ago, and that really hurt. It was a lot," said Burton.

Auctions are favorite places to peddle fraudulent wine. But it's unknown how often they slip through.

Some wineries are taking matters into their own hands and are fighting back against fraud.

In Napa is the first cult-status winery fighting potential fakes.

Using micro-technology developed by Kodak -- the same kind used to identify pharmaceutical drugs. Some are resorting to electronics -- radio-frequency I.D. chips implanted right into the corks and barrels. Their movements can be tracked every step of the way from the winery to the glass, ensuring authenticity.

But some wineries are leaving the electronics behind and sticking with paper but not ordinary paper.

Since 1990, Harlan Estates has been using labels made from bond paper, the same kind stock certificates bonds and postage is made from.

And when a "B" magically appears -- it's bond and the real deal.

But try getting a winery to talk about it all on camera and you only get sour grapes.

"It's not been in their best interest to find out who where these counterfeit wines are coming from because it overall decreases the value of the wines, so they havent focused on it," said Burton.

But they're starting to. After all it's a scam that's hard to quantify. Some people never know they've been taken and if they do, it's usually too late.

A collector on the east coast recently bought five bottles of extremely rare wine for more than $500,000. Four of them were claimed to be once owned by Thomas Jefferson and discovered in a walled-up cellar in Paris. It turns out they never belonged to the president. The collector's filed a lawsuit.

Source: “Wine Counterfeiting Costing Consumers Thousands,” Pallas Hupé, CBS13, SACRAMENTO, CA–May 20, 2007

Additional Articles:
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“Chateau Lafite Collection to be Tested Prior to Sale,” April 25, 2007

“Fighting Wine Fraud Companies Ratchet Up Efforts To Thwart Crooks,” April 10, 2007

““Jefferson Bottles” Set to Splash Across the Press Once Again,” March 18, 2007

"Knowing What You Need to When Buying Wine at Auction,” March 15, 2007

““Buyer Beware,” Collectors Are Dumping Fake Wines, Too!,” March 15, 2007

“United States Doctors Targets For Multimillion Dollar Wine Fraud,” December 21, 2006