Wine Columnist Takes Wine Consultant to Court
By MIKE HEUER
'LAS VEGAS (CN) - Wine experts are embroiled
in a defamation lawsuit, in which the chairman of The Wine Institute of Las Vegas claims a San Francisco consultant accused him of being a "criminal
[who] should be in jail with his cohorts."
Gil Lempert-Schwarz is chairman of co-plaintiff The Wine Institute of Las Vegas, and a wine columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He claims Maureen Downey and her company, Chai Consulting, continue making defamatory statements online and at wine events, accusing him of selling costly counterfeit vintage wines, and it has cost him millions in lost sales and commissions.'
