(TDB) - Just how much fake fine wine is circulating the market? Maureen Downey has an idea – and it’s much more than the trade thinks.

Last month, when speaking at a wine fraud masterclass in London, Maureen Downey, who runs Chai Consulting – a business that specialises in wine authentication and valuation – made it clear that fake bottles were prevalent in the secondary market, particularly in Asia.

Suggesting that the fine wine trade is either ignorant about the amount of counterfeit bottles circulating the market, or deliberately choosing not to publicise the extent of fraudulent wine that could be going through merchants and auction houses, she said that the scale of the problem has not been properly publicised, and said that estimates were likely to be way short of the reality.

“The pervasiveness of counterfeit wines in the fine wine world is a lot larger than people know, or are willing to admit to,” she stated, addressing attendees of the masterclass, which was held at London private members’ wine club, 67 Pall Mall, on 23 November.

Taking the global wine industry to be worth US$304 billion, she claimed that the fine wine market – which she defined as all wines that are traded on the secondary market – was 5% of that total, which would amount to $15bn.