Introducing: Blood Vines
08:27 Share

Get ready for a whole new vintage of true crime. I'm Chris Walker, host of the new podcast Blood Vines, available exclusively on Wondery Plus. Blood Vines is a full-bodied podcast that uncorks the never-before-told story of the Lichardi family, one of the most powerful wine dynasties in California history, who almost brought down the entire industry over a bloody battle for succession.

Grab a glass of your favorite wine and join me as we dive into a story that has notes of fraud and betrayal capped off with a big finish, murder. I'm about to play you a clip from the first episode of Blood Vines. You can listen to all episodes right now on Wondery Plus. Cheers.

June 11th, 2021. It's a stifling hot day in California's Central Valley. The air feels thick and heat shimmers above the ground. But the area I've just walked into is cold, clinical, bureaucratic. I pull out my phone to record a voice memo.

Okay, so I just got to the San Joaquin County Superior Courthouse to view the case exhibits. We're going to go through them in the order that they were presented at trial, and we'll see what comes up here. I'm in a private room off the courthouse's second floor lobby, and spread out before me on tables are envelopes, bags, and boxes. A legal clerk named Margarita stands among them wearing gloves.

She doesn't want me to record her while she gives instructions, but they are as follows: I'm not to touch anything. I'm not to take photos. She will handle each piece of evidence so I can observe it. And yes, she says, I can record voice memos as I view the items. I'm nervous and excited. While I've read a lot about the evidence presented in this room, I've never seen any of it for myself.

We start going through the case exhibits, and Margarita looks a little grossed out. I can't blame her. So I'm looking at the pillowcase now, which has dried bodily fluid on it and looks kind of brown and crusty, and there's a floral print pattern with some dried brown stuff in the corner. Might be blood, might be other bodily fluid.

Next comes a cotton sweater, its backside definitely dark with blood. There's a towel, a spent bullet casing, the murder weapon. It's the body of a Colt 45, but it's a 22, so it doesn't look like a 22, even though it is a small caliber gun. But yeah, kind of like a blue steel with wooden grips on the side. So far, most everything matches the police reports.

There are a few surprises, like when the clerk produces a paper lunch bag full of audio cassette tapes. I'm going to need copies of those. And then, well, I'm not prepared for what comes next. So I'm being presented with some of the photos, which is really quite striking to see for the first time having only read lots of descriptions of this. It's the murder scene.

And as I take in the details, it's the little things that get me. The crooked angle of the victim's neck. The way the man lies backwards, one leg straight, the other knee bent, on a sofa. The expression on his face, peaceful, relaxed, unsuspecting. The photograph's grainy quality only adds to the eeriness. But I am also unsettled for a different reason.

After years of searching, I think I finally know who killed him. My name is Chris Walker. I'm an investigative journalist. And for almost half a decade now, I've been researching how the man in the photograph was connected to an entirely different case. A fraud case. You see, before his death, the victim was just one person under investigation for a multi-million dollar scam.

In the 1980s, it sent ripples through one of California's most iconic industries. But no one thought that case would turn violent. The murder caught everyone off guard, including, as I was learning, federal investigators. I was sitting in my family room watching the evening news. A spot came on about a murder, and he was murdered with a .22 caliber bullet to the head, which is a very mafia-type way of doing it.

But the feds weren't looking into the mafia. Or at least, they didn't think they were. No, they'd been looking into a case involving wine. Lots and lots of wine. Sent from the heart of grape country to living rooms across America. We're talking about one of the largest scams in California history, affecting millions of bottles. But here's the thing. It's not like these bottles were top-shelf wine.

This is what I call an eye roll drink. It's not even really wine. It's just pop drink with alcohol. When you're talking about White Zinfandel. I actually didn't like it as a wine, but I think White Zinfandel was kind of a gateway drug to better wines in some ways. White Zinfandel. The Fed's case centered around a pink drink with notes of Jolly Ranchers that once was, to the embarrassment of many, America's top selling wine.

This is the sugary sensation that birthed Americans' obsession with rosé, turning countless drinkers on to pink wines, even though from the get-go, snobs saw the drink as kitsch. And federal investigators? While they could see fraud developing all around white zin, they didn't think the stakes were all that high. Some went so far as to call the investigation a joke.

But what they couldn't anticipate is that this sweet drink would develop a sour history. Its unexpected success led the wine industry down a dark path. Because fraud is one thing, but murder?

What might have been a pop culture scam set in the fast and frivolous '80s turned into something shocking. Many stones were left unturned, questions unanswered. But I've been on the hunt for those answers and am about to reveal the full story for the very first time. It's a parable of greed that hardly anyone knows about, and the wine industry would prefer to keep it that way. There was always the sense

that you couldn't really trust what was in the field. As time went on, you heard stories about a lot of different people and wineries involved in it. People have fought over it and died over it and made lots of wine over it. So pour yourself a glass and join me because I'm going to tell you a story.

It's quite a curious story of that crazy deal with the grapes and all that stuff. They were saying they stashed the money. And I mean, there's just all these theories that went around, man, about stuff like that. About a family and its secrets. We all felt that the family, being the mafia, were covering up something big. About deception and betrayal.

They both totally disappointed him. They broke his heart. They broke his spirit. And a scandal that threatened the integrity of an entire industry. This is a big fraud, a multimillion dollar fraud. Before it brought down a wine dynasty. The scandal takes on its own life. From Fox's Basinck, this is Blood Vines.

Thirsty for more? Follow Blood Vines wherever you listen to your podcasts and binge all episodes right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. Start your free trial now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.