Thanks for all your comments!
For differences in the labels of new and older vintages of Petrus, check out their video, it’s quite informative:
I will push for more documents to prove provenance.
Truth is in the American and Asian market almost all older wines is sold with doubtful provenance. The one exception is new releases of older wines from the chateau or a few major collector cellars where provenance is rock solid. Auction sites and retailers don’t demand a paper trail for every bottle. And if they did it could be forged too, more easily than forging a wine.
Yeah I understand that, but I dont get why these markets are still so ‘hot’. Bear in mind (from what I can see here) auction wines typically sell in excess of their alleged market price, and most of these wines are available IN BOND in the UK with perfect provenance… how does this still exist? Baffled.
I wrap every bottle in cellophane. Without it, my labels last two years.
HK auction provenance during the height of the Rudy era + a seller proactively offering a discount below market both set off alarm bells for me. Assuming these bottles are authentic, any auction house would love to have them. [Seemingly] Not wanting a professional authenticator to take a close look at these bottles is another huge red flag.
most auction wines sell here for less than the price for the UK-located wine once shipment and tariff are included. The above-market price wines are just the minority that get talked about most on the board. My guess is they are purchased by people who are so wealthy that they consider it worth the extra price to save time by just grabbing the wine when they see it.
With that said, as a typical American bidder I wouldn’t have the first idea how to purchase UK wines in bond so I suspect the same thing is going on with most auction bidders.
For the record, just because a wine is now in bond in the UK doesn’t mean it always was. A wine can bounce around the world before ending up for sale from a bonded warehouse.
Take this example - If you, in the US, consign wine or whisky today to an auction house or other seller, and they decide to sell it in the UK, they will ship it over to the UK for sale. It will almost certainly be sold in bond. If they are reputable, they will have assessed the collection. But nothing about the fact that the bottles are in bond means the provenance is perfect.
I get that.Obviously, thing is, its not that hard - anyone across the world can do it. Importing t o the US might be a bit trickier, never had to do it myself, but I’m sure its not unsolvable. Just blows my mind people will drop thousands on potentially fake Burgundry/Bordeaux when there’s a perfectly provably good alternative.
But in fairness, most merchants will fully disclose origins - in fact wine with US strips are often sold discounted and explicitly called out - I presume for this very purpose.
I’m no expert in this area, but I’d assume the absolute vast majority of EU wine in bonded warehouse in the UK is direct from the EU producer/importer without some weird journey behind it. Happy to be told I’m wrong. If I take a Farr example, they’re currently listing <5 US labelled wines on their website (at a quick browse) - Farr Vintners - Imperfect Stock with Discounts
In the end the kind of wine buyers posting here are very dependent, extremely dependent, on the assumption that wines up to, say, $200-300 per bottle will not be counterfeited.
Something like the recent Sassicaia counterfeit (Italian Police Uncover Counterfeit Sassicaia Ring | Wine Spectator) is scary as shit from that perspective. I imagine that a professional, mass production operation like that would be able to inject its product into the retail chain without much problem, including into UK bond.
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I happen to be married to an expert in this area, who doesn’t post here, but whom I have consulted.
My example of the US is just that - an example. Wine could have been in private collections in the EU or UK before it went back to Octavian or wherever and offered for resale. The major auction houses may report on integrated strip labels, so you can at times track if it came from the US, if it happens to have an integrated strip, but not if it sat in Germany, or a country house in Yorkshire, or a restaurant in France. Or in the US with an independent strip label, which can be removed and often is.
Of course the UK wine industry wants you to think that you’re getting a better product if you buy in bond. Often, it is true. I buy most of my white burgundy and champagne in the UK - but I buy it ON RELEASE, which comes a lot closer to perfect provenance.
I don’t have any way of knowing what percentage of old wine in bond has been there since release from the importer. That doesn’t negate my point, however, that being in bond - in other words, the fact that tax has not been paid on it yet - doesn’t equal perfect provenance. The UK wine industry would LOVE to have you think so, though! 
I get all that. No contention at all - I suppose my comment is on the difference between the theoretical, and the practical. As far as I understand it, every wine in bond in the UK will have a unique rotation number for the particular case which gives its lineage - e.g. if it was imported into bond after notional delivery from the chateau, it should be very obvious?
I buy almost all my wine en primeur, or where top UK merchants are sourcing it directly ex-chateau, or its direct from the merchant rather than a re-sell of a recent vintage (e.g. I recently bought some 08 Billecart-Salmon, but that’s not long out). I’m not really in the ‘old wine’ game per se. A couple of purchases here and there - e.g. through BBR, who inspect every case that lands into their warehouse, irrespective of whether its coming from in bond or not.
So I think that’s a very interesting example, because the article does make a point of it being largely targetted at South Korea, Russia, etc. No mention of EU or UK markets.
I dont know the ‘process’ of how wine gets checked into bond from an intra-EU producer - but I’d assume (perhaps falsely!) that you cant just be anyone landing wine into bond, putting some notional value against it, and then letting it seep into the supply chain.
Of course fraud by, say, negociants would probably get round any of those checks and balances, as obviously does chateau fraud, but I’d love to know how, say, a Rudy would be able to do it at any reasonable scale. I suppose looking at the gov.uk guidelines, there’s no obvious mechanism for checking the authenticity of the sender or the goods themselves. But then I come back to - there’s a reason why wine fraud seems far more prevalent in the US and Asia. I’m nowhere near naive enough to believe it’s not a problem in the UK, for example, but I’d suspect its far far less proliferate than it is elsewhere (to be clear, when I say fraud, I’m talking about the Kurniwan special, rather than chateau/negociant/etc)
Anyone can put wine in bond. If you ship it in that way, to a bonded warehouse, and you don’t pay taxes, it stays that way as long as it’s there. No one checks if authentic when it goes into bond. I mean, no inspectors do. If it’s a Farr or BI or Berry Brothers, you would hope that they would be assessing.
Again, no contest with that, I just query then why the proliferation of fake wine seems so much more reduced in the UK?
This article was interesting - The wine detective battling counterfeiters - BBC News - BBR check 200 cases a week (customer reserves booked in rather than direct purchases through or by BBR) and intercept a fake bottle once every 2-3 months.
I dont know what BI do for inspections, I know Farr are very exclusive with wines they’ll accept, BBR will check every single case (at a £7.50 per case fee) that lands into their cellars. Some other merchants who I wont name are less careful - as far as I’m aware - but still will only sell wine that physically goes through their cellars.
Maybe I spend too much time on WB reading the fraud thread, for example, given the US/Asian slant here. But I feel like fraudulent wine crops up as an American or Asian thing maybe 95-98 times out of 100 whereas UK is part of that small remaining percentage.
Fair enough question. But the fact US plus Asian auction market dwarfs the UK might play a big role.
Yeah, that’s a fair shout.
Thanks for the thought provoking discussion. Very little of my wine is in the ‘potential fraud’ territory, and what is there is most likely far too young currently. All bought en primeur and will be held in bond until I decide to drink it or sell it 
Interesting thoughts, for a richer Henry.
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Auction is the destination of most real bottles of Petrus- why sell them at a discount.
Thank you all for your time - this has been interesting and thought provoking!
I think it is very unlikely that single bottles of wine of this age have been in bond since release. The statement that they come from a private cellar also suggests they were in the former owner’s possession, not in a bonded warehouse.
Exactly! It just means that tax wasn’t paid the last time it entered the UK, whenever that was.