Maureen Downey, DWS, CWE

Maureen Downey, known as ‘The Sherlock Holmes of Wines,’ is a distinguished independent expert in fine and rare wine valuation, inventory management, and the foremost global authority on wine fraud, counterfeits, and authentication. For over two decades, she has advised the world’s most prominent collectors on purchasing, vetting, authenticating, managing, thinning, and liquidating collections through her firm, Chai Consulting. Now in its 20th year, Chai Consulting manages over $120 million in fine and rare wine assets. In 2015, she established WineFraud.com to educate the trade and collectors on the realities of wine fraud and counterfeiting. The website provides detailed information on the process of authenticating fine and rare wines, along with tens of thousands of images of authentic and counterfeit bottles for reference. Together with her team, she conducts seminars worldwide, addressing wine fraud and introducing wine trade professionals and collectors to her TCM authentication method. Additionally, she administers a successful training program to certify TCM Authenticators. Currently, there are ten certified authenticators from seven countries across four continents. To combat fraud, Downey launched Chai Vault, a Web3 solution which enables bottle-level track and trace through supply chain and secondary markets while empowering consumers to make only properly informed, sound purchases and investments. Importantly, Chai Vault enables producers’ oversight on the movement of their bottles as well as enabling direct engagement with their consumers. Via hyperlink to a bottle’s blockchain-secured Ledger of Authenticity and Provenance on vendor and aggregate websites, online catalogs and PDFs and in email offers, Chai Vault provides consumers proof of authenticity as well as a bottle’s sale history online from anywhere in the world - prior to purchase. Along with cases involving wine fraud and counterfeits, Downey is a frequent expert witness in projects and litigation involving asset division, valuation of producers’ library wines and inventories damaged by extreme heat, natural disasters, and poor storage conditions. Today, Ms. Downey is considered one of the top women in wine and can be seen combatting counterfeits in the documentary film, Sour Grapes.