The Grape Broker: 2

Summary

Blood Vines: The Grape Broker – Episode 2 Summary

Blood Vines delves deep into one of California’s most notorious wine scandals, uncovering the intricate web of deceit, betrayal, and ambition that defined the rise and fall of the Licciardi family. In "The Grape Broker: 2," host Chris Walker, alongside federal prosecutor Steve Lapham and key players like Anthony Scotto Jr., unravels the complexities of the largest grape fraud in U.S. history.

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1. The Sweet Taste of Success: White Zinfandel’s Dominance

The episode opens by revisiting the booming popularity of White Zinfandel in the 1980s. By 1987, White Zinfandel was a dominant force in the wine market, selling over 8 million cases annually. Marketers capitalized on its appeal, positioning it as America’s gateway wine and fueling a nationwide obsession.

Steve Lapham highlights the economic pressures of the time:

"White zinfandel was an inexpensive wine, and the economics of it were difficult. If your grape pricing got much above $500 a ton, he was murdered with a .22 caliber bullet to the head, which is a very mafia type way of doing it. I could see that it involved a fraud on a pretty large scale. Multimillion dollar fraud." [00:11]

This surge in demand led to a grape shortage, as wineries scrambled to secure adequate supplies of Zinfandel and other varieties, exacerbating supply chain issues across the industry.

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2. Enter Jack Licciardi: The Godfather of Grapes

At the heart of the crisis is Jack Licciardi, a master grapebroker whose influence over California’s vineyards was unparalleled. Known as the "godfather of grapes," Jack possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of the state’s vineyards and had the power to make or break wineries based on his grape allocations.

Chris Walker sets the stage:

"Jack Licciardi... had the opportunity to be the hero California needed. But there was also a chance that he might also be its villain." [02:04]

Jack’s reputation was built on integrity and reliability, making him a respected figure in the tightly-knit wine industry. However, his extensive control over grape distribution placed him in a pivotal position when grape mislabeling began to surface.

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3. Federal Scrutiny: Steve Lapham’s Investigation

Federal prosecutor Steve Lapham spearheaded the investigation into widespread grape mislabeling. Initially, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) deemed the case low-stakes, believing that minor discrepancies in grape varieties wouldn't significantly harm the industry:

"Wines having slightly different grapes in them was still wine, right? What was the harm?" [05:15]

However, Lapham recognized the broader implications, understanding that mislabeling threatened the integrity of California’s wine reputation. His persistence led him to focus on Jack Licciardi, suspecting the grapebroker’s central role in the fraud.

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4. The Licciardi-Scotto Relationship

Anthony Scotto Jr., a fourth-generation winemaker, becomes a pivotal character as his interactions with Jack Licciardi reveal the personal dimensions of the scandal. Despite never having met Jack in person, Scotto developed a close, almost familial relationship with him.

During their first meeting, Scotto observes the guarded demeanor of Jack’s sons:

"He couldn’t move... So you know the son, Robert, he can’t move." [10:40]

Jack's struggle with muscular dystrophy added layers of complexity to his character, fostering a genuine bond with Scotto, who admired Jack’s integrity and business acumen. However, underlying tensions surfaced as Scotto sensed unease within the Licciardi family, particularly concerning Michael Licciardi’s questionable actions.

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5. The Bavaro Brothers: Catalysts of the Fraud

The emergence of Nick and Frank Bavaro, two young and ambitious brothers from Escalon, marked a significant escalation in the grape fraud. Nick’s prodigious business skills quickly caught Jack’s attention, leading to his recruitment to manage the Licciardi family’s LB Ranch vineyard.

Steve Lapham explains the initiation of the scheme:

"Licciardi approached Bavaro and asked him to deliver low sugar grapes. And without field tags." [16:10]

Field tags, essentially the grapes' birth certificates, were omitted to disguise the origins of the varietals being delivered. This allowed the Bavaro brothers to substitute Zinfandel grapes with cheaper alternatives like Carignan and Grenache, which were then mislabeled to meet the high demand and inflated pricing of Zinfandel.

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6. Executing the Deception: Mislabeling and Fictitious Entities

To maintain the facade, the conspirators employed several deceptive tactics:

• Fictitious Companies: They created fake vineyard names such as "Rihanna Farms" and used aliases like "George Garcia" to mask the true origins of the grapes.
• Field Tag Manipulation: By removing or falsifying field tags, they ensured that the substituted grapes were incorrectly identified as Zinfandel, complying superficially with California’s 75% rule.

Steve Lapham details the financial incentives:

"With zinfandel writing near $500 a ton at the time, and Valdepena and Carignan down around 100, he and Michael stood to make $400 in profit for every ton of mislabeled grapes they delivered." [16:31]

By 1987, the scheme had yielded nearly half a million dollars in illicit profits, with Nick delivering 1,200 tons of misrepresented grapes.

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7. Industry Implications: Undermining Trust and the 75% Rule

The fraudulent activities had far-reaching consequences for the wine industry. California had recently enacted the 75% rule in 1983, mandating that a labeled grape variety must constitute at least 75% of the wine. This rule was intended to bolster consumer trust and distinguish California wines from European counterparts.

Jancis Robinson, a famed wine writer, explains:

"It was embraced by the consumer because it made wine so much simpler. And it did distinguish California wine... from slightly fusty European wine at that stage." [21:53]

Grape mislabeling directly contravened this regulation, jeopardizing the credibility of all Californian wines. The scandal threatened to erode consumer trust, casting doubt on even the most reputable labels and undermining the hard-earned reputation of the state’s wine industry.

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8. Personal Vendettas and Family Discord

As the fraud unraveled, tensions within the Licciardi family intensified. Michael Licciardi, facing looming exposure, attempted to conceal his illicit activities from his father, Jack. Meanwhile, Frank Bavaro and other young conspirators grew increasingly brazen, confident in their ability to evade detection.

Steve Lapham sheds light on Michael’s motivations:

"He's due to inherit a multi million dollar a year business and his father is very stingy... So he's impatient, I think, to inherit the business and start living the good life." [13:02]

This impatience fueled Michael’s determination to secure his financial future, even at the expense of his family's legacy and the broader wine industry.

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9. The Looming Confrontation: Betrayal and Exposure

As federal authorities closed in, the Licciardi family's empire teetered on the brink of collapse. The impending confrontation forced Jack to reassess his relationships and confront the possibility of betrayal from within his own ranks.

Steve Lapham narrates the unfolding crisis:

"And then all of a sudden one day, you know, some feds showed up and things kind of came to a screeching halt." [25:44]

Jack’s unwavering commitment to honor and integrity clashed with his sons’ deceitful maneuvers, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown that would determine the future of the Licciardi dynasty and the integrity of California’s wine industry.

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10. Teasing the Next Chapter

The episode concludes by hinting at the intensifying drama awaiting in the next installment:

"What’s a powerful patriarch to do when the empire he built is starting to crumble?" [26:26]

Listeners are left anticipating the government's strategic maneuvers and the inevitable family confrontations that will further unravel the scandal.

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Notable Quotes:

• Steve Lapham [00:11]: "White zinfandel was an inexpensive wine, and the economics of it were difficult... a fraud on a pretty large scale. Multimillion dollar fraud."

• Jack Licciardi [20:36]: "This is what I call an eye roll drink. You order it, you get an eye roll."

• Anthony Scotto Jr. [19:23]: "Just sugar and water and alcohol."

• Jancis Robinson [21:43]: "It was embraced by the consumer because it made wine so much simpler."

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Conclusion

"The Grape Broker: 2" masterfully intertwines personal narratives with broader industry implications, painting a vivid picture of ambition gone awry. Through meticulous investigation and compelling storytelling, Blood Vines exposes the vulnerabilities within California’s wine industry, questioning the very trust consumers place in what they drink. As federal scrutiny intensifies and family loyalties are tested, the Licciardi saga promises to deepen, revealing the true cost of greed and deception.

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Blood Vines is available on the Wondery app and other major podcast platforms. For an ad-free experience, listeners can subscribe to Wondery+.

Transcript

[Chris Walker]

Previously on Blood Vines. Pretty in pink Blush is the word many people used to describe the wine of the 1980s. White Zinfandel.

[Steve Lapham]

White zinfandel was an inexpensive wine, and the economics of it were difficult. If your grape pricing got much above $500 a ton, he was murdered with a.22 caliber bullet to the head, which is a very mafia type way of doing it. I could see that it involved a fraud on a pretty large sc. Multimillion dollar fraud.

[Chris Walker]

Picking up where we left off last episode, White zinfandel was taking over the wine World. By 1987, it was flying off shelves, more than 8 million cases a year. And marketers recognized a cash cow when they saw one. They continued pushing white zinn as America's gateway wine, the pink drink that could lure in millions of new initiates.

[Steve Lapham]

Hey, Mike, I really like this white zinfandel.

[Chris Walker]

Well, good, good. Now put it down. We're gonna try another one. He loves to do this.

[Anthony Scotto Jr.]

This one's great.

[Chris Walker]

Yeah, I like it better. With revenues crossing 350 million in 1987, over 51 wineries jumped on the white zin train, making it California's top exported wine. This meant wineries needed as much of the namesake grape as zinfandel as they could possibly get their hands on. And the reality was, demands for all kinds of grapes were shooting up. The entire industry thrived as Americans switched over from beer and cocktails to wine. As Sutter home's Barry Wist told me.

[Barry Wist]

If there was any kind of reference to good wine, really great wine had to come from Europe, had to come France. You know, there's no way we produce great wine in the United States. But I think white zinfandel introduced people to, hey, this is just something that tastes good. Wine just tastes good, whether it be cabernet sauvignon, Napa Valley, California wine.

[Chris Walker]

Newcomers wanted to try all of the golden state's wines. But because of that buying spree, a grape shortage was causing real supply chain issues. Between 1975 and 1990, demand for all kinds of wine grapes increased fivefold. And while Sutter Home had avoided the run on zinfandel by buying up grapes ahead of time, other wineries looked frantically for more fruit. But for those in the know, there was a guy that you could turn to during an unprecedented grape crunch. Someone with the power to solve the industry's supply chain problems. What the casual drinker might not realize is that the winemaker listed on a bottle doesn't necessarily grow their own grapes. To get all the fruit they need to make wine. Many vintners buy grapes from independent farmers. And to negotiate those deals, they need a middleman, A master dealmaker, a skilled arbitrator known as a grapebroker. In the 1980s, there was perhaps no better connected grapebroker in California than a guy by the name of Jack Licciardi. Think of him as the godfather of grapes. A man who knew California's vineyards like the back of his hand and whose grape deals could make or break a winery when he decided what parts of the state got grapes and which ones didn't. At a time when California was trying to become the go to spot around the world for wine, he had the opportunity to be the hero California needed. But there was also a chance that he might also be its villain.

[Jack Licciardi]

Who?

[Chris Walker]

Because when evidence emerged of widespread grape mislabeling infiltrating California's wineries, it occurred to federal investigators that Jack was in precisely the right position to orchestrate such a scam. Tips, rumors, and stakeouts all pointed to Jack's company. And so before any more false grapes ended up in California's bottles, before any word of fraud got out that sullied California's reputation or momentum, the feds needed to find out what Jack and his company were really up to. I'm Chris Walker, your guide in this series about the largest grape fraud in US History, the powerful family at the center of it, and how a stunning sequence of betrayals triggered the fall of a California dynasty and forever changed the way we make wine in America. From Foxapus, Inc. This is Blood Vines. It had taken federal prosecutor Steve Lapham some digging to land on Jack Licciardi's name. It was still about 36 months before any bodies turned up, and some of his counterparts at the ATF still thought this case was too low stakes to pursue. Wines having slightly different grapes in them was still wine, right? What was the harm? But Lapham saw a bigger picture. He knew that grape mislabeling was affecting the entire industry.

[Steve Lapham]

The growers had a sense for how much Zinfandel was out there. Too much was being delivered to the wineries to make sense.

[Chris Walker]

And even while he was grappling with the implications, he'd learned to falsify grape shipments, landing at a winery where a guy named Michael Licciardi handled the deliveries. It didn't take much detective work to figure out that Michael's father, Jack Licciardi, was the real impresario of the delivery business. Corvette Co. Michael's own nickname. Jack's Legs betrayed his status because his authority came through his dad.

[Steve Lapham]

Now this is a guy who runs a $10 million business out of a checkbook.

[Chris Walker]

That's 10 million per year, or accounting for inflation, about 26 million in today's dollars. Lots of money flowed through the Licciardi's business, along with nearly unfathomable volumes of fruit. Lapham thought Licciardi could be key to the whole thing. As soon as the prosecutor started asking around, he began to hear lots of strong impressions of the man. California's wine industry has always been incredibly tight knit. Seemed like everyone knew each other. That's still true today in my own reporting. Whenever I mentioned Jack Licciardi, people in the business told me there was one guy I needed to talk to, a guy who knew Jack on the level and might be my best chance of getting an insider's sense for California's grape king and his ascent to power.

[Jack Licciardi]

My name is Anthony Scotto Jr. Anthony.

[Chris Walker]

Scotto Jr. Is a fourth generation winemaker.

[Jack Licciardi]

My dad in the wine business, he was a good friend of many of the old timers that virtually were pioneers.

[Chris Walker]

After Prohibition and in the 1980s. One of those old timers was Jack Licciardi. Scotto first heard about Jack through his dad, who, like everyone, had done deals with the legendary grapebroker.

[Jack Licciardi]

Everybody that had any vineyards knew that if they didn't have a contract, Jack could sell their grape.

[Chris Walker]

And Jack's experience putting such deals together went back decades.

[Jack Licciardi]

He was a contemporary of Ernest and.

[Chris Walker]

Julio Gallo, the California brothers who built the world's largest winery, which today produces almost a billion bottles annually.

[Jack Licciardi]

These are guys that made wine during Prohibition. And Jack understood how to deal with these old time winemakers.

[Chris Walker]

After all, Jack had grown up around them. His parents had immigrated to the United States from Sicily around the turn of the century. And after the Licciardi family moved to California, Jack learned the ins and outs of viticulture. Over the decades, the grapebroker earned respect. Part of it was his uncanny knack for predicting wine trends in which he foresaw what grape varieties farmers should plant months, years or decades before harvest.

[Jack Licciardi]

Jack was a linchpin. I mean, he, he would get people to try other things.

[Chris Walker]

He was a no nonsense businessman whose word was his bond. So long as you didn't cross Jack, you'd continue getting the fruit you needed. Winemakers conducted million dollar deals with him over the phone without so much as a handshake. In fact, Scotto says his own father never Met Jack, despite 20 years of grape deals from somewhere in Stockton. Jack was this invisible hand who could source fruit around the state from Santa Barbara to the upper reaches of California's north coast. But scotto says in 1985, and I'll never forget this, his family's winery went bankrupt and owed almost $300,000 to Jack. Scotto decided to repay Jack before anyone else. And so the godfather of grapes sent word that he wanted to meet the young winemaker who'd respected him enough to settle his debts. And moreover, Jack wanted to meet Scotto in person.

[Jack Licciardi]

He calls, I go to visit him in Stockton.

[Chris Walker]

Scotto drove to the address, but hold on. Was this the right place?

[Jack Licciardi]

Jack lived in a humble little abode.

[Chris Walker]

Here was a guy doing millions a year in business. And his 1,400 square foot house looked like it hadn't had an upgrade or coat of paint in 30 years. It certainly didn't appear to be the home of a grape baron, but Scotto brushed it off. What's wrong with living frugally? He straightened his shirt, took a deep breath and entered the house. His two sons are there, two sons that Jack had brought into the family business a couple years earlier.

[Jack Licciardi]

Robert, who I never met, he was there. And he had a fatigue, an army fatigue on with army boots. And the guy looked like he was a paramilitary kind of guy. And Michael was there. Michael's a nice enough guy, nice enough.

[Chris Walker]

But kind of standoffish, with dark hair and tinted glasses. The two stood like bodyguards around their 63 year old father, who sat in the center of a sagging couch. Jack didn't so much as rise, and Scotto felt uneasy, a little intimidated and unsure of what to say.

[Jack Licciardi]

So I go to shake Jack's hand. It was the longest 30 seconds I ever felt because I'm there trying to shake this guy's hand. I put my hand out, he couldn't move. And I did not know that. So you know the son, Robert, he can't move. That was his comment. And Jack says, anthony, I have ms, so I really wish I could shake your hand, but I can't.

[Chris Walker]

Actually, it was muscular dystrophy. But now Scotto understood why people rarely saw Jack outside his home, why Michael's nickname was Jack's legs. The disease made the grapebroker's every move painful. But despite that hardship, he was the.

[Jack Licciardi]

Kind of guy that grew on you because he was a good listener. He wasn't a salesman. He really took interest in people. So we developed a friendship.

[Chris Walker]

More than a friendship. Over time, Jack would become like a father figure to Scotto.

[Jack Licciardi]

He had all the attributes my father didn't have.

[Chris Walker]

And Scotto grew as close as an adopted son. But Jack's real sons, Scotto didn't trust them. Something seemed off. And so Scotto brought up that first meeting to me. Not just because it's when a wine legend became his close friend, but it was his first indication trouble loomed on the horizon. He wasn't sure what to make of Robert's rude remark when Scotto tried to shake Jack's hand.

[Jack Licciardi]

He can't move. That was his comment.

[Chris Walker]

He also had a hard time getting a read on Michael, who his dad had placed a lot of trust in, considering he couldn't leave the house. And while Michael may have done his father's bidding, he also seemed to have his own plans on how the family business should be run. A fact made clear to Scotto when Michael started approaching him with offers that made him feel uncomfortable. Scotto felt reluctant to tell Jack about it, figuring this was a family affair. But he suspected Michael was up to no good. And he wasn't the only one. Because as Lapham and his team started interviewing people around the Licciardis, the federal prosecutor was beginning to develop his own suspicions about Michael.

[Steve Lapham]

He's due to inherit a multi million dollar a year business and his father is very stingy. Or he's frugal and Licciardi could be living the high life with the money that they're making, but his father won't let him do that. So he's impatient, I think, to inherit the business and start living the good life.

[Chris Walker]

And Lapham had reason to believe that Michael was making moves of his own, possibly without the knowledge or approval of his old man. While the feds had yet to approach the Licciardis directly, they'd started looking into a couple of other players operating in the family's orbit. Some younger guys in the wine business. By all appearances, they also had every reason to make sure that Jack never found out what they were up to.

[Frank Bavaro]

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[Chris Walker]

While Jack Licciardi had built a brokerage empire from his command Post In Stockton, 20 miles away in the town of Escalon, population 3,200, in the 1980s, two men half his age, Nick and Frank Bavaro, had built a farming empire in a little less than a decade. The older of the brothers, Nick Bavaro, possessed a cunning business mind. By the time he was a teenager, he was negotiating deals for almonds, peaches and grapes like a Chicago commodities trader. And given how small California's wine industry was in the 70s and 80s, it was only a matter of time before the wunderkind crossed paths with Jack. And when they did, Nick impressed Jack, to put it lightly. In him, Jack saw the same type of youthful ambition that had propelled him to his own success. He eventually hired Nick to manage the Licchiardi's family ranch, a 10 acre Grenache vineyard called LB Ranch. And it was through this arrangement that Nick dealt regularly with Jack's legs, his son Michael. The two young men proved to be a dangerous combination, putting the fate of California's entire wine industry into question. To this day, no one will admit being the one to come up with the idea. But here's the government's version of how it all started. In August of 1986, based on evidence that Lapham and his team eventually acquired.

[Steve Lapham]

Licciardi approached Bavaro and asked him to deliver low sugar grapes. And without field tags.

[Chris Walker]

What's a field tag, you ask?

[Steve Lapham]

The field tag is essentially the birth certificate of the grape. It says this grape, Zinfandel grape, was harvested from this field at this location.

[Chris Walker]

So for Michael to ask Nick to use empty field tags, that was highly unusual, not to mention illegal. But for whatever reason Bavaro did that.

[Steve Lapham]

He delivered Carignan, Grenache and Valde Pina.

[Chris Walker]

All kinds of red grapes, which at a glance, look similar to Zinfandel.

[Steve Lapham]

After that, Bavaro learned that the grapes had been misrepresented as Zinfandel.

[Chris Walker]

But even if Nick realized that was illegal, he kept quiet about it. With zinfandel writing near $500 a ton at the time, and Valdepena and Carignan down around 100, he and Michael stood to make $400 in profit for every ton of mislabeled grapes they delivered. By the end of 1987, Nick delivered 1200 tons of mislabeled grapes to the tune of almost half a million dollars in illicit profits. He was too good to give up. And they had reason to believe they wouldn't be caught. Because remember, Michael had carte blanche access to one of the nation's largest wineries.

[Steve Lapham]

Mike Licciardi had an office at Delicato, so during the crush he would be there almost 24 7.

[Chris Walker]

This arrangement was the result of a years long friendship his father had developed with Tony and Delicato, Delicado, vineyard's owner. As Scotto puts it, when nobody else.

[Jack Licciardi]

Could get grape, Jack got grape for Delicado. And Jack came up with thousands upon thousands of tons for a long period of time, maybe up to 10 years, making wine that put Delicado on the map.

[Chris Walker]

Delicato had promised to deliver thousands of gallons of America's favorite wine, white Zin. Even though Zinfandel grapes were becoming increasingly hard to come by, all of it lined up in Michael and Nick's favor. So much so that heading into the 1988 season, they decided to expand their operation. This included bringing in Nick's younger brother, Frank, as a reliable man on hand to coordinate deliveries. As the young men figured, why not continue giving the higher ups at Delicato what they wanted? Zinfandel, at least on the tags. I reached out to both of the Bavaro brothers as part of my reporting. Nick declined to be interviewed, but I did meet Frank at a farm he owns in Escalon. At first I wasn't sure I'd get an interview. Frank was nervous, skittish. But after drinking a couple beers and fixing an irrigation line between two rows of his peach tree orchard, he did let me turn on my recorder. He wasn't too keen to get into the mechanics of the fraud, just how he helped ensure that so many imposter grapes ended up in America's favorite. But he was at least willing to talk about how he justified things back then.

[Anthony Scotto Jr.]

Well, I was 26, 25 at the time, and at that age, not thinking very straight. And my little mind was no harm, no foul. It's white sand. Just sugar and water and alcohol.

[Chris Walker]

After all, this wasn't like they were misrepresenting grapes destined for a luxury Napa Valley cab.

[Anthony Scotto Jr.]

It doesn't have the characteristics of Zinfandel itself. It's an inferior. It's not even really wine. It's just a pop drink with alcohol.

[Chris Walker]

That might sound snobby, but Frank's take on white Zin wasn't all that uncommon. If anything the disdain is even more pronounced today.

[John McClellan]

Hi, I'm Farley. And you might not think that this is a problem when it comes to wine, but I do, because it's happened to friends of mine, it's happened to my mom, and it's something that I think needs to stop. That thing is White Zinfandel.

[Chris Walker]

There are a plethora of Internet videos just like that, like this one from comedian John McClellan.

[Jack Licciardi]

This is what I call an eye roll drink. You order it, you get an eye roll. If you can order one without getting an eye roll, you're in the wrong place.

[Chris Walker]

Shop around and you can even find T shirts with slogans like friends don't let friends drink White Zinn. And for those in on the scam like Frank, the wine's low class status only heightened the sense that they weren't doing any real harm. It was just a cheap, mass produced product being purchased by people who hadn't yet developed a wine palate. While White Zin might have been the gateway wine for millions of Americans, the joke was on them. The ironic little secret that their very entry point to wine was based on a lie and they weren't even suave enough to know. But the reality is this sentiment completely missed the point. And hang with me for just a sec here. This is important because at the exact time this fraud was unfolding, California had only recently passed something called the 75% rule. As it related to winemakers, it was meant to champion the types of grapes they used. As famed wine writer Jancis Robinson explained.

[Jancis Robinson]

It to me, the message really was, all you need to know is a handful of grape names, and it's your passport to understanding wine.

[Chris Walker]

They're the very names we're all familiar with today. Grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

[Jancis Robinson]

And it was embraced by the consumer because it made wine so much simpler. And it did distinguish California wine, and subsequently Australian wine, for instance, from slightly fusty European wine at that stage.

[Chris Walker]

The 75% rule passed in 1983 codified this. It says that for a California wine to be labeled as a Merlot, for example, it must contain at least 75% of that particular grape. So if you see a bottle labeled as Merlot, it has at least 75% Merlot grapes, Syrah, 75% or more Syrah grapes. This was a big leap from the previous benchmark of 51%. And the rule still in effect today is all about trust. We're supposed to be able to trust what A label says that a California cab really does consist mostly of cabernet grapes. The 75% rule even extends to such low brow wines as White Zinfandel. That California bottle says White Zin. It's supposed to have mostly Zinfandel in it. So mislabeling grapes, it undermines this new system. It undermines the integrity of the wine industry with the potential to cast doubts not just on White Zinfandel, but all of California's wines. Most of all, it undermined Jack Licciardi's integrity. A man who'd built his reputation and relationships on the quality of his grapes. But even if Michael and the Bavaros failed to grasp the big picture, they knew they couldn't let Jack find out what they were up to.

[Steve Lapham]

One of the problems that Michael Licciardi faced was he had to pull a fast one on his his father, Jack Licciardi, who was the owner of the company and who never would have entered into a scheme like this. So he had to create these companies that were fictitious.

[Chris Walker]

Jack had an encyclopedic memory of farmers he'd dealt with and would be sure to recognize anything unusual if deals were done under known aliases. So according to the government, the co conspirators made up fictitious companies with fictitious vineyards that Jack wouldn't recognize, like Rihanna Farms, which was actually a play off the name of one of the Bavaro's employees, Fred Rena. Other times, they delivered grapes under pseudonyms, like George Garcia. And so far, Jack didn't seem too suspicious. Delicato hadn't seemed to notice anything was amiss either. Although according to Frank, the winery didn't look too hard.

[Anthony Scotto Jr.]

The motivation was there. And feeling that we had the blessing of the people they were selling to that they purposely kind of turned their head the other way.

[Chris Walker]

Scotto mentioned this too.

[Jack Licciardi]

The wineries closed their eyes to what was going on. They didn't care. They needed to fulfill their contract, and they were extremely lenient with what was going on.

[Chris Walker]

But that was about to change. Soon the public was going to find out what was going on. Wineries would be forced to confront the grape mislabeling souring their industry. And the godfather of grapes, Jack, he was going to ask some tough questions. And again, you didn't cross Jack. Loyal to a fault. He counted honor and integrity among his most important virtues. And betrayal, well, that was the ultimate sin. On the next episode of Blood Vines. The government plays its hand.

[Steve Lapham]

And then all of a sudden one day, you know, some feds showed up and things kind of came to kind.

[Chris Walker]

Of like a screeching hall and suspicions mount amongst family. Yeah, it was a big, beautiful house.

[Jack Licciardi]

Kind of took my dad by surprise.

[Chris Walker]

That sparked something in my dad and friends.

[Jack Licciardi]

Jack wanted me to go out and double check Mike's work, and I wouldn't do it. I says, you want me to kind of rat him out? I'm not going to do it. I'm not a rat.

[Chris Walker]

So what's a powerful patriarch to do when the empire he built is starting to crumble? He's been put up against a wall, and there's always a chance that things could take a dark turn.

[Frank Bavaro]

His chin was down, he looked blue.

[Chris Walker]

And his neck looked out of place. That's coming up on episode three of Blood Vines. Blood Vines is a production of Thoxapus, Inc. Our executive producers are Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Story editing is done by Alicia Lincoln and Laura Krantz. Blood Vines is scored and mixed by Louis Weeks. I'm your host and creator, Chris Walker. This podcast was made possible in part by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. If you're enjoying Blood Vines, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts and please share it with your friends. It really helps more people find out about our show.