FBI joins fake wine probe

CHICAGO, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- FBI officials at the agency's Chicago office say an agent with the art and antiquities fraud unit is working with a national inquiry into counterfeit wine.

One focus of the investigation is counterfeiting of a 1921 Bordeaux from France's Chateau Petrus vineyard after three magnums -- double-size bottles -- purporting to contain the wine were pulled from a recent Chicago auction due to suspicions that they may be fakes, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.

"They are being sold for upward of $75,000," FBI Chicago spokesman Ross Rice said of 1921 Bordeaux magnums.

The bottles were pulled by auctioneer Edward Brooks after it was revealed that a Dallas wine broker warned the seller, a wine collector from Texas, that the bottles may not contain the wine printed on the label.