Watch the 'Sherlock Holmes of Wine' explain how to spot a counterfeit bottle
As Notorious B.I.G once said, with more money comes more problems.
This holds very true for those wealthy enough to possess cellars full of fine wines. As it turns out, there's a chance that that '82 Petrus you dropped thousands on is actually a fake.
"Wine fraud is not new," Maureen Downey tells Bloomberg Business. As a wine fraud investigator, Downey spots counterfeit wines for a living — a job she has so meticulously honed that she earned the nickname "The Sherlock Holmes of Wine." Downey's craft is extremely particular, requiring her to examine wine labels with magnifying glasses and blue lights in order to determine if a bottle is a counterfeit.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"You have to have looked at tens of millions of dollars of real wine to be able to spot a fake," she says. "It can be really brutal to tell a client that they've got fake wine, so I kind of have to treat it like taking a Band-Aid off." Watch Downey explain her craft in the video below. —Samantha Rollins
-
How climate change is affecting ChristmasThe Explainer There may be a slim chance of future white Christmases
-
The MAGA civil war takes center stage at the Turning Point USA conferenceIN THE SPOTLIGHT ‘Americafest 2025’ was a who’s who of right-wing heavyweights eager to settle scores and lay claim to the future of MAGA
-
The 8 best drama movies of 2025the week recommends Nuclear war, dictatorship and the summer of 2020 highlight the most important and memorable films of 2025
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
