(TimAtkin) - Solid evidence has been slow in coming, but there is little doubt that over the past decade the Russian government, under the direction of Vladimir Putin, has been tampering with the wine business. The tampering has taken many different forms, but it all seems aimed at destabilizing the credibility of the wine business itself — not such a difficult task given the unstable nature of its most famous figures. No one is quite certain what Putin’s motivation might be, other than he’s just a meddling, power-hungry dictator, which makes it rather astonishing he failed his recent Master of Wine practical exam.

American Intelligence (long thought not to exist, the recent election confirming its absence) has been keeping a close eye on the Russian influence in the wine business. Sources in the Intelligence community, whose identities will remain confidential because they are not authorized to speak on the record, plus I was righteously pissed when I spoke with them and can’t seem to remember who they are, say that there is evidence that Rudy Kurniawan was actually a Russian agent working undercover. 

Kurniawan’s assignment, a source told me, was to destroy the wine auction business by selling fraudulent wines to unsuspecting auction patrons. And the plan might have worked, only the auction houses had already been doing that for years and were only too happy to have even better forgeries than usual. Kurniawan is now serving his prison sentence, though there are rumors that President Trump is considering a pardon for Kurniawan (perhaps in a deal with Putin), having recently Tweeted, “Dr. Conti sold phony wines to stupid crybabies like Bill Koch. So what? Lying media makes FAKE wines. FAKE news. Disgusting.”