Rudy Kurniawan was, it was rumoured, a wine savant, had an expert memory for taste, a generous host, offering rare wines from his huge cellar, who in 2006 made 35 million dollars in two wine auctions from the sale of his wine. Then in 2008 a French wine producer, Laurent Ponsot, realised that wine from his family's domain was being sold from a year they hadn't produced it. That day, he says, he took the first plane to New York, and thus begun his crusade.