Acker Wines, known as “America’s Oldest Wine Shop” and a long-time Upper West Side favorite with an extensive 200 year history, was exposed by Inside Edition for allegedly selling a counterfeit bottle of bourbon. (Shortly after publishing this, Acker Wines returned our request for comment and sent us a statement which you can read at the bottom of the article).
Investigators visited the Upper West Side store, located at 160 West 72nd Street, to buy an almost $1,000 bottle of what the employee said was authentic Colonel E.H. Taylor Four Grain, which is produced at the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfurt, Kentucky.
A representative from the distillery told Inside Edition that all of their bottles come with a distinct “lot code” as well as a “special packaging tube,” neither of which were present on the bottle purchased from Acker.
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Once the purchase was complete, investigators sent it to the distillery. “Right out of the gate there were enough red flags that it piqued our interest,” said a representative from Buffalo Trace Distillery. “It seemed like something wasn’t quite right.” He also said a chemical analysis found that the proof didn’t match their product, and that the “strip stamp” was on backwards. “Based on all of the testing that we completed including the evaluation of the bottle itself, I do not believe this bottle is authentic.”
When reporters returned to Acker and confronted a manager outside of the store, he didn’t seem too happy to see them.
Here’s the video by Inside Edition:
After reaching out to Acker Wines, we were sent the following statement from a representative of the store:
“A few months before we were contacted by Inside Edition, we became aware of a possible authentication issue with a select bottling of Colonel E.H. Taylor Four Grain Bourbon that we obtained from a private collector. After an immediate investigation into the authenticity of the bottles, including contacting the parent company of E.H. Taylor, Sazerac, our concerns were not alleviated, and we removed all of the bottles from our shelves and ceased all business with the providing collector. We immediately contacted and refunded all of the customers who had purchased bottles before our recall, save for one buyer who declined to provide his contact information. We now believe this was the bottle behind the Inside Edition story.
“We are committed to delivering the very best in fine and rare wine and spirits to our clients, and the authenticity of our products is paramount. We recently announced the launch of our global spirits division which included hiring US and Asia heads, and have also invested in authentication practices through the retention of multiple, well-respected, independent spirits authenticators.”
They corrected the error but now with this article you’ll put a 200 year old local store out of business. Good work!
Not surprising for this place. Plenty of other reputable wine shops on UWS.
Lee,
I am apprehending that you missed the fact that Acker grew concerned about the authenticity of the bourbon, investigated, and finding the bourbon to be counterfeit pulled all the stock, issued refunds, and ceased doing business with the “collector”. Oh, and sent a bottle to the distillery to confirm the fraud.
Also what makes you assume other liquor stores in the area, if confronted with such fraud, would behave the way Acker did?
Do you go through life assuming every error is intentional?
You don’t see the hole in the story? They said trhey found out months before Inside Edition came by, but still sold the counterfeit bottle to them
This is not the first time Acker Wines has been involved in fraud.
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/wine-fraud-rudy-kurniawan-vintage-burgundies
https://nymag.com/news/features/rudy-kurniawan-wine-fraud-2012-5/
Observations:
1) The indicators – stamp & numbers on bottle presumably should have been picked out by any legitimate Acker buyer of collectibles like this.
2) Acker rep on street had ZERO interest in dealing with the subject – actually ran away. Is this the behavior of honest people or people you want to buy from – whether bourbon or groceries/
3) Reasonable to expect a legitimate vendor would stand up for questioning & deal with, especially if they had made an honest mistake. They would address or acknowledge their error. Acker did neither.
At minimum, Acker failed at basic Due Diligence, negligently jeopardizing its own reputation. At worst . . .
In either case, why would anybody buy from this shop?
Not making sure the stuff from a collector was genuine was first big mistake. Must have purchased at low price to sell high. I should ask the sources of all its products if I ever go there again. Several other good places to buy wine, etc., nearby
Luther,
A valid point, since this is not an ancient bottle of wine, Acker could have checked the serial number/s before purchasing from the “collector”.