(Bloomberg) - For sale: 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. Starting bid: $6,375. Previous owner: convicted wine counterfeiter.

U.S. federal marshals are facing one of the toughest sales jobs they’ve ever had. Better known for auctioning off stolen cars and drug dealers’ yachts, they’re now bringing down the gavel on more than 4,700 bottles of wine from the private cache of Rudy Kurniawan, convicted of fraud in late 2013 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He gained widespread fame for snookering luminaries of the wine world into spending millions of dollars on fake bottles of Chateau Petrus and Domaine de la Romanee-Conti.

For sale: 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. Starting bid: $6,375. Previous owner: convicted wine counterfeiter.

U.S. federal marshals are facing one of the toughest sales jobs they’ve ever had. Better known for auctioning off stolen cars and drug dealers’ yachts, they’re now bringing down the gavel on more than 4,700 bottles of wine from the private cache of Rudy Kurniawan, convicted of fraud in late 2013 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He gained widespread fame for snookering luminaries of the wine world into spending millions of dollars on fake bottles of Chateau Petrus and Domaine de la Romanee-Conti.

On Thursday, federal marshals will use a front loader to smash 548 bottles -- more than a hundred gallons of wine -- they believe have been faked and, of course, recycle the glass. The rest, about 90 percent of Kurniawan’s collection, is being sold in two online auctions (Nov. 24 - Dec. 8 and Dec. 1 - 15) at www.txauction.com.

A number of prominent wine experts, winemakers, collectors and victims of the fraud fear that the U.S. is extending Kurniawan’s legacy by putting phony bottles on the market. That would further taint the labels Kurniawan counterfeited and mean his knockoffs could be sold again for decades to come. The marshals expect to net $900,000 to $1.2 million for the victims, compared to the $29.4 million Kurniawan owes them.