Kurniawan lawyers seek to omit FBI evidence

Alleged wine fraudster Rudy Kurniawan’s defense lawyers have asked US federal district judge Richard Berman to omit evidence obtained in an FBI search of Kurniawan's LA home due to issues over the legality of the search. As reported on db.com, Kurniawan is working to have evidence of an elaborate laboratory for counterfeit wines in his home excluded from his trial.

His lawyers are to contest the legality of an FBI search of his LA home after his arrest in a Los Angeles suburb in March. Kurniawan appeared at a brief hearing in a Manhattan federal courtroom last week wearing khaki prison clothing and midnight blue tennis shoes, the Wine Spectator reports.

At the hearing, Berman set a schedule for filings by the two sides, which will culminate on 14 November in the defense's expected motion to suppress the results of the FBI's search. During the search, agents found a home laboratory filled with thousands of fake labels dating back to 1899, including all the Bordeaux first growths and fine Burgundies such as Domaine Ponsot.

The operation was fitted out with hundreds of used corks, foil capsules and hardened wax which, when heated, could seal the mouths of bottles. There were also hundreds of rubber stamps for vintage dates, ranging from Château Latour 1899 to Screaming Eagle 1992, and stencils to imprint the names of famous wine estates on wooden cases.

According to a source close to the defense, FBI agents had an arrest warrant but not a search warrant when they entered Kurniawan’s home on 8 March. "It's one thing if you search a person, or a car, but a person's home is sacrosanct. If our motion is granted, and evidence is suppressed, it's a different case,” the source told the Wine Spectator.

"Our motion is being made to ensure that the Constitution is being honored in the letter and spirit in this case. Other than that, we will let our court papers do the talking,” Kurniawan's lead attorney Michael Proctor said of suppressing the search. Kurniawan is being held without bail at a Brooklyn federal detention facility.

Hedonism Wines

Tomorrow a temple of fine wine opens in London. The Russian-owned Hedonism Wines in Mayfair boasts various vintages of all of the five first growths, along with Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Super Tuscans Sassicaia and Ornellaia, Screaming Eagle, Pétrus, Le Pin and many other of the finest wines available to humanity.

Run by Alistair Viner, Harrods' ex head wine buyer, the most expensive single bottle on sale is Château d'Yquem 1811 at an eye-watering £100,000.  I was lucky enough to be invited to the press launch on Monday night. Descending into the cavernous basement, on catching sight of the giant large format bottles on display, from Domaine de Chevalier Blanc 2000 to Château Pichon Baron Longueville 2005, I felt like Alice in Wonderland after she'd imbibed the 'Drink Me' shrinking potion. Hedonism is more Ferrari showroom than fine wine mecca.   

Turning a corner, I stumble across a Surrealist cave filled with sinister hands, from Mickey Mouse gloves to lobster claws gripping the bottles in a scene straight out of a Salvador Dalí and André Breton film, with a little Labyrinth and David Lynch thrown in for good measure. Taking another turn into the unknown, I enter what looks like a forest filled with wine bottles taken captive in the corkscrew-like twisted branches.

Stopping to drink in the curious mise-en-scène, I hear a squeak and watch one of the bottles move of its own accord. It's all very Lord of the Rings – I half expect Frodo Baggins to come bounding in barefoot. Though most of the liquid treasures remain unaffordable to mere mortals, Hedonism is worth a visit for the experience alone. With so many iconic bottles on show – their lusted after labels naked and exposed – it's a wine lover's delight. Go forth and drool...

Julia Child loved fine wine as much as food

Clearly a woman of impeccable taste, American TV chef and author Julia Child was as passionate about fine wine as she was good food, and had a weakness for Château d’Yquem, Chablis, Chambertin and classed growth Bordeaux, db.com has revealed.

Speaking to The Oregonian on the eve of what would have been Child’s centenary on 15 August, close friend and travel companion Pat Pratt said: “Julia had a weakness for Château d'Yquem, especially when served with Grand Marnier soufflé or crème brulée, but she also paired it with foie gras or pâté.”

“We went to visit the château in Bordeaux and were leaning over the well in the center of the courtyard. We both lost our sunglasses down that well,” she added. Child also had a penchant for white Burgundy, and is quoted as saying: "I would happily die with a bottle of white Burgundy in my mouth.” She had a particular fondness for the minerality of Chablis, which she’d pair with lobster and oysters.

A lifelong wine lover, Child is best known for her 1961 debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which features a chapter on wine. Her husband, Paul, was a wine educator who kept well-stocked cellar. Keen to enhance her wine knowledge and improve her tasting skills, Child was a member of Burgundian wine society La Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin.

She indulged her passion for wine by visiting vineyards in Bordeaux, Burgundy, Italy, Alsace and California. "At every vineyard we visited, Julia and I would always taste one grape from the end of the row. We weren't supposed to, but we did," Pratt told The Oregonian. "When we had really good meals together, I would ask for the label off the bottle,” she added.  

A big Bordeaux lover, Child showed a preference for Château Palmer, Château Lafite and St Emilion Grand Cru Classé Ausone, which she once visited. Despite a love of wine, Child was strict about not indulging while at work – the glasses she raised at the end of her TV shows were filled with coloured water. For her 40th birthday, Child enjoyed roast duck and 1926 Gevrey-Chambertin, and lusted after Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which she only got to drink once.

In Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Child recommends Château La Mission Haut-Brion with veal, Corton-Charlemagne with beef, Volnay with brie and Grands-Echézeaux with veal kidneys. A number of events organised by Les Dames d'Escoffier, an international society of professional women in the fields of food, wine and hospitality, are taking place across the US today to honour Child’s centenary.

Ponsot: “Rudy Kurniawan had an accomplice”

The plot thickens... Laurent Ponsot of Domaine Ponsot in Burgundy has spoken out about the Rudy Kurniawan wine fraud case, claiming he knows the identity of an accomplice in the the Indonesian collector’s alleged crimes – as reported earlier this week on thedrinksbusiness.com. “Rudy has been advised by someone with extensive knowledge of Burgundy. I know who it is, but in the current state of the investigation, I keep this information secret,” Ponsot told Vanity Fair. “Rudy himself should denounce his informants and his accomplices.” Ponsot added. 

One possible accomplice is Kurniawan’s Burgundy-born friend and former business associate Paul Wasserman, who met Kurniawan in 2002. Managing a wine shop Kurniawan bought in LA, Wasserman educated the young collector in the intricacies of Burgundy. “He would call me regularly for buying advice and insights into producers, vineyards and vintages. He was avid for information and I was an excellent source for him,” Wasserman told Vanity Fair. 

Defending himself on wine writer Mike Steinberger’s Wine Diarist website, Wasserman denied any knowledge of Kurniawan’s counterfeiting activities and apologised for “any unwitting role” that may have contributed to the scandal. Wasserman claims he and the now 35-year-old Kurniawan fell out at the end of 2008. Having been indicted by a federal jury in New York on 9 May, details emerged about Kurniawan’s counterfeiting methods. 

Known for asking for the empty bottles of the old and rare wines he drank at Cru restaurant in New York, Kurniawan had been refilling the bottles with blends he made from lesser wines, including large quantities of négociant Burgundy from the ‘50s and ‘60s, many of which were bought from Beaune-based merchant Patriache. “Rudy emptied the cellar of Patricache,” a French merchant told VF, adding, “He had a certain respect for the product; you might say he was a gentleman thief.” Ponsot believes 80% of pre-1980 Burgundy being sold at auction today is fake.

According to Mike Steinberger, author of the Vanity Fair article, Kurniawan’s arrest raises uncomfortable questions for John Kapon, head of auction house Acker Merral & Condit. “Kurniawan played a central role in Acker Merral’s rise, and much of the discussion among industry insiders has focused on Kapon’s part in the scandal,” Steinberger wrote. In April 2008, 97 bottles of Domaine Ponsot belonging to Kurniawan were withdrawn at the last minute by Kapon from an Acker auction at Cru in New York.

Among the lots was a bottle of 1929 Ponsot Clos de la Roche, a grand cru the domaine didn’t produce under its own label until 1934, and 38 bottles of Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis from 1945 to 1971, despite the estate not making the wine until 1982. Ponsot had flown in from France especially for the auction, believing he needed needed to be in the room in order to prevent their sale. 

The 58-year-old proprietor admitted to Steinberger that he felt “a bit of glory” at the fact that Kurniawan deemed his wines worthy of counterfeiting. “You don’t copy Swatch. You copy Breitling and Rolex,” he said, though conceded that the fraud felt like “an attack on the terroir and spirit of Burgundy.” Kurniawan faces up to 80 years in prison. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on 23 May. 

Rudy Kurniawan indicted

Alleged wine counterfeiter Rudy Kurniawan has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on four counts and faces extradition to the East Coast state. As reported on db.com Kurniawan was formally accused by the jury of mail and wire fraud to sell counterfeit wine, defrauding a finance company, double pledging collateral, and scheming to defraud a California wine collector and a New York auction house.



The charges were filed by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Kurniawan, 35, has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles since his arrest by the FBI on 8 March at his home. According to a source in the US Department of Justice, Kurniawan will be imminently extradited to New York in a government plane by a federal marshal.



The indictment details how Kurniawan, an Indonesian national, allegedly “assisted in the creation of counterfeit wines” in a home laboratory. It describes Kurniawan as a wizard at concocting fake wines by mixing and matching younger, less valuable wines “that mimicked the taste, colour and character of rare and expensive wines.” 



The indictment alleges that during a search of his home, the FBI found evidence of numerous bottles being counterfeited, including a California Pinot Noir that Kurniawan had marked as “40’s/50’s DRC, ” referring to Burgundy estate Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Agents also found thousands of counterfeit labels for wines dating as far back as 1899, including labels for all the Bordeaux first growths as well as Burgundies such as Domaine Ponsot. 

The home operation was fitted out with hundreds of used corks, foil capsules and hardened wax which, when heated, could seal the mouths of bottles. There were also hundreds of rubber stamps for vintage dates, ranging from Château Latour 1899 to Screaming Eagle 1992. The FBI also found empty bottles of fine and rare wines ready to be filled and “recycled”. Several shipments of empty bottles were mailed to Kurniawan at his request by a New York restaurant he frequented.



Two auctions play a major part in the case against Kurniawan. In April 2008, 22 lots of purported Domaine Ponsot wines were withdrawn at the insistence of Laurent Ponsot, proprietor of the Burgundy estate, from an Acker Merrall & Condit sale. This February, 78 bottles of wine listed as DRC were withdrawn from a Spectrum auction in London. The indictment alleges the wines were fakes, consigned by a paid “straw man” for Kurniawan.



If Kurniawan were to be convicted on all charges, he could face up to 100 years in jail. More likely, according to sentencing guidelines, he would face 87 to 108 months. Asked about his client’s state of mind, Kurniawan’s lawyer, Michael Proctor of Caldwell Leslie & Proctor said: “He’s strong, very strong.”

Domaine Dujac

Wine and the City talks to Alec Seysses of Domaine Dujac at the Berry Bros Burgundy 2010 en primeur tasting about the 2010 vintage, comparisons to 2009, how lower yields will affect pricing, and whether Burgundy will become the next big wine investment region for China.

Lafite '08 down 45% as fine wine prices fall

The value of Lafite 2008 is down 45% on last year, as 2011 fine wine prices showed their most dramatic slide since 2008. As reported on the drinks business, according to Liv-ex, prices of the 100 top-traded wines fell by an average 22.5% between June and December last year – the steepest fall since the beginning of the recession nearly four years ago. Lafite ‘08 peaked in January 2011 at £14,043 a case, but was trading this month at £8,108, while Lafite 2009 has dropped 28% in value in the last six months, from £13,831 a case in July 2011 to £9,800 in December 2011.

Year to date prices for Lafite 2008 were already down 26% last August with the wine proving the worst performer in terms of price of the last 10 physical vintages from the estate. This is in stark contrast to October 2010, when the price of Lafite ’08 shot up by 20% overnight after it was announced bottles would be marked with the Chinese symbol for the number 8, regarded as lucky in China.

Meanwhile, the Live-ex Claret Chip, consisting of Bordeaux first growths from top vintages going back to the mid-‘80s was down 26% in the second half of 2011. The second wines of the first growths have also performed poorly, with Château Margaux’s Pavillon Rouge 2008 down by nearly 50%. Carruades de Lafite 2008 fared better, but still lost 29% of its case price. Though Carruades 2005 is holding up well, selling for £3,672 in June 2011 and £3,054 last month.

Bucking the trend are top second growths like Leoville-Las-Cases and Cos d’Estournel, which have maintained their value and outperformed the falling market. Outside first growth claret the picture is slightly rosier, with Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanee Conti, Chateau d’Yquem and Super Tuscan Sassicaia the strongest brands in 2011.

Why the change? According to WineSociete China, China’s leading organisation for wine education, it can be put down to China’s money supply. In 2009, Chinese banks made almost 10 trillion yuan in new loans, expanding the country’s loan portfolio by a third. In 2010 they lent almost 8 trillion yuan, roughly twice as much as in 2008. Trillions of yuan, formerly locked up in bank reserves, flowed into the economy, leading Chinese consumers to put their rapidly depreciating currency into hard assets like fine wine.

Last year, money supply growth and lending in China fell sharply as Beijing put the brakes on asset and consumer price inflation. As lending has declined, so have sources of credit for many of China's local and privately owned enterprises. In an attempt to generate liquidity, fine wines are quietly being offered for sale by many Chinese collectors.

Julio Iglesias interview

Julio Iglesias doesn’t do things by half. During his 42-year music career, the Madrid-born singer has sold more than 300 million albums in 14 different languages, making him among the top 10 best-selling musicians in history. Last year, the 66-year-old, who has reportedly slept with over 3,000 women, released album number 77, and he’s currently midway through a world tour – ‘It’s a great excuse to drink wines from different countries every night,’ he says, laughing.

His speech is littered with huge numbers – a million dollars here, 800 million pesetas there, and I quickly get the impression that Iglesias’ world is one in which money is no object. ‘I used to spend more than a million dollars a year on wine,’ he tells me, in a genuinely casual, rather than boastful way. The singer has bought so much wine over the years that he seems to have lost count of how many bottles he has in his three cellars in Spain, Miami and the Dominican Republic.

‘I’ve got about 5,000 top wines and hundreds of thousands of normal wines,’ he admits, without hyperbole. Generous with his plentiful stock, he gives away about 100 cases of wine to friends every year and thinks nothing of cracking open a bottle of Pétrus 1982 after a concert to share with his band. Isn’t it wasted on the uninitiated? ‘Not at all,’ he counters. ‘They’ve all become wine connoisseurs and have built cellars too. The vodka days are over!’

It was in the summer of ’82 that Iglesias tried to buy the acclaimed Ribera del Duero estate Vega Sicilia. ‘I was having dinner with friends in Madrid and it came up in conversation that Vega Sicilia was on the market for 800 million pesetas (around US$6m back then). I got on the phone to them the next morning, but it was too late.’ The winery had already been sold to a Venezuelan family, who went on to sell it to the Alvarez family, the current owners. ‘It wasn’t my lucky day, I guess,’ Iglesias says wistfully.

Vega Sicilia aside, he insists he’s not just a trophy collector – wine has shaped his outlook on life. ‘My understanding of life has become much stronger and clearer through my appreciation of wine,’ he says, describing spending those millions on wine in the ’80s as: ‘the best thing I ever did in my life’. Brought up in Madrid in the '50s by his doctor father, Iglesias got by in the early days by drinking ‘any old stuff from Valdepeñas’. In his late teens he played as a goalkeeper for Real Madrid football club, until a near fatal car accident in 1963 ended his sporting career. During his rehabilitation, to develop dexterity in his hands, he started playing the guitar and subsequently, writing music.

Iglesias’ wine epiphany was equally notable. In 1973 he was invited by Baroness Philippine de Rothschild – a big Iglesias fan – to a dinner party at her home in Paris after one of his concerts. ‘She asked me what I thought of the wine and I told her that I’d never tasted anything like it,’ Iglesias recalls with brio. ‘She summoned the butler to serve a second wine, this time in a decanter, which I later learned was Lafite 1961. It was the first time in my life I’d felt a wine all the way down to my toes. It worked its magic through my body and made me realise that wine had a lot more mystery and history than I had first thought’.

The memory of the Lafite lingered, sending Iglesias on a lifelong wine journey. He began picking up the odd case in the countries he toured in – reds in France, whites in Germany – and got seriously into collecting in 1978, after building a 4,000-bottle cellar in the Miami home he shares with his second wife and their five children. He grew his cellar by seeking out bargains at New York merchant Sherry Lehmann. ‘In the late ’70s you could still get hold of great 1947s and 1961s. The ’75s were coming onto the market and I started spending a lot of money on Bordeaux, buying up all the Pauillac, Pomerol, Graves and Margaux I could get my hands on. Before you can appreciate great Burgundy, you’ve got to cut your teeth on good Bordeaux’.

Outside of France, Iglesias collects Spanish icon wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero, particularly (perhaps still longingly) Vega Sicilia, as well as Pesquera, Pingus and CVNE Imperial. ‘I’ve recently got much more interested in Spanish wines’, he tells me. ‘I love trying wines from lesser-known Spanish regions like Calatayud, Jumilla and Zamora’. He dips his toe in the New World via Australia, South Africa, California and Argentina, but his wine heartland is very much Bordeaux and Burgundy. ‘My latest obsession is Pinot Noir,’ he tells me excitedly. ‘Romanée-Conti from a good year is absolutely unforgettable. When made well it’s so approachable young. You don’t have to wait for it, which is great, because I don’t have too much time.'

Article originally published in Decanter magazine

Champagne Mumm lunch at The Ritz

There are certain rites of passage in the life of a gastronome, and lunch at The Ritz is one of them. When a Ritz-shaped invitation landed on my desk the other week, I almost fell off my chair with excitement. Writing for a drinks magazine, I'm never short of enticing invitations, but there's something special about The Ritz. It still stands for something.

And so it was, that I left the office last week and headed for Green Park under a cornflower blue sky with a spring in my step. The lunch was celebrating the launch of Champagne Mumm Cuvée R. Lalou 1999. A chilled glass of Mumm NV awaited me on arrival, along with a besuited swarm of thirsty wine journalists. There was palapable excitement in the room in anticipation of the feast. I'd bumped into a Mumm rep at the recent Bibendum EC1 tasting, and, having already tasted through the menu, he informed me that black truffles made an appearance in almost every dish. My mouth had been watering for a week.

After a brief introductory speech by winemaker Didier Mariotti, we were soon ushered from the floral drawing room, through a pair of giant, gold-knockered doors into the Rubens red William Kent room complete with soaringly high ceilings, gothic candelabra, swagging that would make Laurence Llewelyn Bowen weep with pride, and quirky paintings of long limbed birds.

I was sat next to Sotheby's head of wine Serena Sutcliffe MW, resplendent in turquoise. She told me of her pre-Sotheby's days working as an interpreter in Paris, and went on to mention the recent Picasso sale at Sotheby's, where a portrait of Picasso's 17-year-old blonde mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter went for £25m. "Picasso walked up to her in the street and said 'we're going to do amazing things together'", Sutcliffe tells me, her blue eyes bright.

After a verbal tour of the tasting menu from unsung head chef John Williams, lunch soon begins in earnest. As an experiment, we were to try six examples of the Cuvée R. Lalou, served at six different temperatures, two degrees apart from 6-16ºC, to explore how temperature effects the character of Champagne. The warmer the Champagne, the more dominant the Pinot Noir becomes in the blend.

The seven course meal begins in a spectacular fashion with a simple salad of Périgord truffles, king oyster mushrooms and Pecorino. The tangy cheese, papery mushrooms, heady truffle and citrusy salad make for a wonderful flavour combination. Both light and indulgent, intoxicating and refreshing – an oxymoron of a dish. Next up is carpaccio of smoked eel (pictured above), which looked like a play mat and tasted equally ludic, the eel perfectly complimented by the smokey slithers of pancetta and cooling beetroot cubes – inspired cooking.

During an inter course of bresse chicken Champenoise, I seize the opportunity to ask Serena which she considers to be the best wines she's ever tasted, having undoubtedly had access to the best wines in the world. She takes a moment to reflect, then replies: "Domaine de la Romanée Conti 1921 and Cheval Blanc 1921". I linger over her liquid memories, knowing these two wines will always remain mythical to me. A confit of Brixham turbot follows, served with oxtail in a hazelnut butter. The hazelnut was woefully absent from the butter, and the oxtail savagely stole the turbot's thunder with its feral, meaty flavour.

Stepping up the flavour a notch further, the turbot is succeeded by Anjou pigeon stuffed with foie gras in a black truffle sauce. I suddenly feel like one of Henry VIII's harem at a Tudor banquet – all we need is a harpsichord and silver goblets filled with mead. Rich and hedonistic, it was wonderfully indulgent, but my mind kept wondering back to the enchanting opening duo of dishes. But what of the wine? I wasn't able to detect vast amounts of flavour nuance from the differing temperatures, but the Cuvée impressed. It showed structure, power and elegance, with a toasty approach, and a smooth, nutty finish.

The surprise of the day came in the form of an egg cup filled with liquid Beaufort cheese, served with a trio of Marmite-laced soldiers. The cheese was soft, warm, and comforting, and once the soldiers had marched down my oesophagus, I tilted my head back and took it like a shot. I rather like the idea of cheese shots – we should drink food and eat drinks more. There's something rather quaint about a Marmite Croque Monsiuer – the former so quintessentially British, and the latter so unmistakably French. It represents a coming together of French and English breakfasts: diplomacy on a plate.

Before leaving the pleasure dome of The Ritz behind, I'm treated to a Mille Feuille of caramelised pink lady apples with Champagne ginger sorbet, artfully presented alongside a swoosh of caramel. The invigorating ginger sorbet had a biscuit halo, while the delightfully named pink lady apples were small and perfectly round, with a sweet, toffee apple flavour that went wonderfully well with the Mumm demi-sec. After a quick mint tea and miniature macaroon, I'm ushered out of the William Kent room, and back out onto the busy London streets. Still light, it feels as if waking from a dream, but the name card in my pocket serves as proof that for one afternoon, I lunched like a prince.

Phillip Schofield: My Passion for Wine

I'm in Phillip Schofield’s cellar drinking a 1982 Canon. Our interview has ended and before having his photo taken, he decides it would be a good idea to crack open a claret to enjoy during the shoot. We were given strict instructions by the PR to be in and out of his Henley home in an hour. Two hours on and we haven’t taken a single picture.

Since Decanter last spoke to the 46-year-old presenter of daytime TV’s star turn This Morning a decade ago, he’s been busy amassing a 7,500-bottle cellar of superstars that would quicken the pulse of most wine lovers. Wooden cases are stacked floor to ceiling like Jenga blocks, and at every turn is a big name – Pétrus, Cheval Blanc, Ausone, Angelus, Le Pin, Lafite, DRC, Yquem – it’s hard to think of a top wine that isn’t represented. ‘It’s the only thing I’ve got into that I’m still passionate about,’ Schofield admits. ‘Over the past 10 years it’s become even more of an obsession.’ He couldn’t be more serious about wine; every bottle is logged and he faithfully keeps tasting notes for every wine he drinks. It’s a far cry from the days of presenting children’s TV with furry sidekick Gordon the Gopher.

The country house Schofield shares with his wife, Steff, and two teenage daughters has two cellars: one under the house for ‘everyday drinking’, reached via a staircase that appears out of nowhere from under the floorboards; and a ‘long-haul’ cellar under his garage. He’s going to need a third at this rate. Standing in his impressive garage cellar, it strikes me how at odds his wine obsession is with his fluffy public persona. When it comes to wine, this man means business.

Schofield’s taste leans heavily towards the Old World – ‘there’s nothing finer than a classic Bordeaux or a beautifully elegant Burgundy’ – but he does play a little in the New World. ‘I have a four-bottle allocation of Araujo in California, which I take every year. It took three years to get three bottles. The next year someone died so I got an extra bottle – it’s dead man’s shoes.’

The self-styled ‘silver fox’ has established himself among wine’s movers and shakers, and enjoys invites to the en primeur tastings in Bordeaux and decadent dinners at the likes of Latour. Having previously concurred to save face, Schofield is now confident about stating his opinion at tastings after witnessing mistakes from the top of the wine tree. ‘I took a bottle of the 1962 to Latour, and Frédéric Engerer, the MD, didn’t know what it was. That was great!’

Even though he doesn’t buy to invest – ‘I’ve never bought a bottle I intended to sell’ – Schofield keeps an eye out for bargains. ‘The city boys are all going bust so their wine is flooding the market. They drove us into this mess so we deserve the pickings of their wine.’ And in today’s delicate financial climate, he sees his cellar as his safety net. ‘If my world falls apart, my wine collection will be my pension.’

His wine heartland is Bordeaux, but he dabbles in Burgundy through Rousseau and DRC, favouring Gevrey-Chambertin, and the Rhône – Guigal’s single-vineyard Côte-Rôties are among his favourites. Despite having more than he could possibly drink, Schofield saves his top bottles for special occasions. He’s not the type to kick back and enjoy a Latour 1982 with a movie mid-week. ‘You’ve got to open your best bottles in the right frame of mind. Wine is so emotional. A friend of mine died and I thought, sod it, I’m going to open something amazing. I did and it was dreadful. A Mouton 1982. I may as well have had a coffee.’

Does having to wake up so early for work deter him from midweek drinking? ‘Steff isn’t a red wine drinker, so if I open a bottle during the week it’s going to be me drinking it. I can’t remember the last time I re-corked a bottle and drank it the next day.’ He’s healthily blasé about the Government’s nanny-state stance on drinking. ‘I don’t care what the government says about drinking. I’m fed up of being patrolled by the fun police.’

His most memorable bottle was enjoyed last year with Jancis Robinson MW, whom he cheekily calls ‘her majesty’. Schofield had organised a Cheval Blanc vertical at culinary alchemist Heston Blumenthal’s Bray pub, The Hinds Head. ‘The waiting staff staggered over from The Fat Duck with Riedel glasses’, he recalls. ‘I’d been saving this bottle of 1947 for a decade. I remember bidding for it over the phone in a lay-by in Wolverhampton. I’ve never felt more pressure than I did about opening that bottle. Thank God it performed beautifully.