Friday 14 March 2014

Fake wine and Lynch Bages

This morning someone shared on the Facebook group Hong Kong Wine Lovers an article on Wine Times HK about fake wines, and it was about a returned bottle of Ch Lynch Bages 2008 and why it should not be a fake bottle, merely one that did not like up to expectations at the time. Now I have my problems with Lynch Bages too, which  I had already blogged about.(The blog about Ch Lynch Bages itself is here.)

Back to the article, even though it touches on the problem of fake wines, there were no direct hints in the article how the average end user might try and assess whether the bottle at hand is fake. Frankly I agree with the hint that the average wine drinker in Hong Kong or elsewhere is unlikely to be able to detect it, unless it is really a very bad attempt at deception.After all, for the professionally faked bottle, very sophisticated equipment is needed to ascertain something is indeed fake.

As for disappointment with a certain bottle of wine, sometimes it is the unreasonable expectation that is the culprit, as in the case of the 1984 Yquem. I don't know why there is so much hype about Lynch Bages, but this may contribute to the disappointment felt. Then again, one factor which was not mentioned in the article was bottle variation, which is not supposed to be significant these days, but then my experience with Mouton 1994 certainly makes for cautionary reading.

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