The film "Sour Grapes" is a highly immersive wine crime documentary

This time, I would like to introduce the documentary film "Sour Grapes," which was released in 2016.

Source: Amazon

The film is based on a real case of counterfeit wine .

A large amount of counterfeit wine was circulating in the wine auction world, where extremely high prices are traded. The culprit behind the production and distribution was Rudy Kurniawan , a famous wine collector at the time.

This is a highly immersive documentary that mainly consists of actual footage from before the incident was discovered and interviews with people who were directly involved in the incident.

"Sour Grapes" Detailed Information

Movie genre	documentary
theme	Wine, counterfeit wine
Production year/country	2016/UK
time	85 minutes
director	Reuben Atlas, Jerry Rothwell
Distribution site	Netflix (currently unavailable)

This is a documentary film about a counterfeit wine case that occurred in 2012, also known as the "Rudy Case."

The meaning of the title "Sour Grapes"

The title "Sour Grapes" is a proverb derived from one of Aesop's fables, "The Fox and the Grapes."

A fox tries to pick grapes from a tree, but is unable to do so. In frustration, the fox justifies himself by saying, "Those grapes are bound to be sour anyway." This is how the phrase "sour grapes" came to mean "sour grapes."

I think the title is probably a satire of the fact that collectors who pride themselves on being wine collectors do not feel regret or anger when they are deceived by counterfeit wine, but rather end up making sour grapes without even realizing it themselves.

The counterfeit wine case that inspired "Sour Grapes"

A wine counterfeiting case that shook the industry, with total damages said to be 12 billion yen .

The perpetrator of this crime, which came to light in 2012, was a Chinese-Indonesian man named Rudy Kurniawan .

He was a famous wine collector at the time, and he bought extremely expensive wines one after another at American wine auctions attended by the world's wealthiest and wealthy people. He also put wines from his own collection up for auction. However, many of the old vintage wines he sold were counterfeit.

In other words, they would use real high-end wines that they had obtained as models, and then create counterfeits by blending wines that tasted similar or adding herbs.

Rudy, who was Asian and still young in his 30s, seemed to stand out very much in the American wine world, and his sociable personality meant he had many wine enthusiasts.

The problem of counterfeit wine has been occurring all over the world, but what made this case so shocking was that a famous wine collector himself was the one who counterfeited the wine.

And it would take a very long time to recover sophisticated counterfeit wines. It would probably be nearly impossible to recover them all.

The fact that tens of thousands of bottles of Rudi's counterfeit wines are still in existence around the world poses a major problem for winemakers, retailers, wine collectors, auctioneers and others involved in the wine industry.

As of 2020, there are reports that he will be deported to Indonesia after serving his sentence in a US prison, and his future movements are attracting attention.

Highlights and impressions of "Sour Grapes"

In the world of wine auctions, where high-value transactions take place one after another, Rudy appears like a comet as a wine collector and is portrayed in a mysterious way.

The story is mainly told through interviews, and the guests are a diverse bunch, including wine collectors who actually held wine parties with Rudy, victims of fraud, and people involved in the investigation.

Although there have been no interviews with Rudy himself since the incident came to light, the character of him is conveyed so realistically because all of the interviews are not second-hand accounts, but the true words of people who were actually involved .

I was particularly intrigued by the part that talked about how the victims came to suspect Rudy and how the investigation was carried out.

You will be so drawn in that you will feel as if you too have been deceived by Rudy, and you will find yourself sympathizing with the victims, making the story strangely relatable.

The second half of the film features some shocking scenes, including the complete set of materials and tools used to make counterfeit wine that were seized from Rudy's home, and the scene where the counterfeit wine is crushed at a waste disposal site.

However, for some reason, it is difficult to see Rudy as a completely evil person, which may be a trick (or a trap?) that only a true con man can pull.

summary

"Sour Grapes" is a highly entertaining documentary film with much more substance than you would imagine from the title.

You can also learn about wine auctions and counterfeit wine issues. Enjoy the experience while sipping wine.