A posh New York City wine retailer and auction house is paying a $100,000 fine to settle charges that it sold counterfeit bottles of pricey bourbon — but hasn’t fired any of the employees who were responsible for the scandal, The Post has learned.
Acker Merrall Condit — a 203-year-old booze store on the Upper West Side that bills itself as the “oldest and most respected wine shop in America” — agreed to shell out the maximum penalty to state regulators after a probe uncovered sloppy business practices surrounding the sale of fake bottles of Colonel E.H. Taylor Four Grain bourbon at $1,000 each, public records show.
The New York State Liquor Authority commissioners’ monthly meeting on Feb. 1, revealed fresh details about the mess — first reported in an Inside Edition expose in 2021 — including the fact that store employees bought the fake hooch from a private collector despite telltale signs that it wasn’t authentic.
The family-owned business — run by famed wine connoisseur John Kapon, who regularly stages tastings and auctions bottles of prized vintages like Lafite Rothschild and Domaine Romanee Conti for thousands of dollars each — is “taking responsibility” for the scheme, Acker Merrall’s lawyer, Kevin Danow, assured the panel’s three commissioners at the hearing.
“That’s not going to go on anymore,” Danow said, noting that the shop recently hired its first in-house counsel, a former Sotheby’s attorney – Stacey Chervin Sigda – who “instituted the record keeping that was missing.”
That was after SLA Commissioner Vincent Bradley asked incredulously whether the employees who bought the fake bourbon were still working at the West 72nd St. retailer.
“There was clear fraud here or at least a large potential for fraud,” Bradley told Acker’s attorneys at the hearing, a video recording of which was viewed by The Post.
Store employees “were going out with their own money, buying from private collections and reselling it to the liquor store, but not telling the liquor store what they paid for it,” Bradley added.
The commissioner also wanted to know whether Acker ever learned what the employees paid for the fake bourbon.
Danow answered “No.”
“The employees you are talking about,” Danow said, “have been disciplined” and “retrained,” adding that the state investigation “frankly scared the hell out of them.”
Danow told the SLA, “we believe Acker was targeted,” but didn’t elaborate.
Acker was fined for purchasing whiskey from “unauthorized” sellers on five occasions in 2020 and 2021 and for failing to keep proper records.
The bottles in question were filled with inferior bourbon and passed off as a coveted Kentucky whiskey from Buffalo Trace. Lab testing by the distiller found that the bottles – which also were missing lot codes and the proper cardboard tube packaging – were not authentic, according to the Inside Edition report.
According to New York’s alcohol laws, an individual is not permitted to purchase wine or spirits from a private collection, except if the alcohol is being purchased on behalf of a licensed business, SLA spokesman Joshua Heller told The Post.
“It’s not legal what the [Acker] employees did,” he added, “but it’s a little bit gray whether they were acting as agents for the company.”
The hefty fine, which Acker voluntarily offered to pay, is striking since most SLA fines are between $2,000 and $10,000, experts said.
“What anyone does if they are concerned that they might lose their license is offer a settlement to ensure that the license isn’t cancelled,” liquor license attorney Max Bookman told The Post. “They could have lost their license over that,” Bookman added.
Danow declined to comment to The Post and Acker did not return calls and emails for comment.
It’s the latest scandal to rock the ranks of New York’s most venerable wine stores. Sherry-Lehmann, which owes New York several million dollars in back taxes, as The Post reported, has been sued over failing to deliver expensive wines to customers.
Acker has said little about the counterfeit bourbon it sold – and it is growing problem as demand for pricey bourbon is soaring and fraudsters are coming up with clever ploys including buying used bottles of expensive bourbon to refill with less expensive product.
Acker issued a statement in 2021 explaining that it “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.”
Acker investigated the matter privately, the company said, removing all of the suspicious bottles from its shelves and “contacted and refunded all of the customers who had purchased bottles before our recall.” except for the bottle “behind the Inside Edition story.”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
