Synopsis  

A couple goes to a party with the passcode of ‘decadence.’ As one might suspect, it’s a party for wealthy dilletants. As one may not guess, it was a private auction for rare wine, held at the Vogel mansion. In the wine celler, some expensive wine is revealed to a party goer, who says he’ll pay anything for it. Of course, that doesn’t work out when the seller is found dead in a wine barrel, shot at by some young punks in an alley, well decomposed and grotesque. No ID was found, save cufflinks with the initials ‘JD,’ and was killed by a small caliber gunshot. His last meal of whale sushi was served by a cook who was regularly known to have served whale sushi at the home of Albert Vogel. Vogel ID’s the cufflinks as belonging to Jack Davari, and notes that he argued with Marc Ratelle recently.

Ratelle, while the CSIs are looking into his background, breaks into Vogel’s wine cellar and smashes all of the wine of the same kind he’d intended to buy from Davari. Turns out the wine in Vogel’s was all faked, and Ratelle destroyed it. The CSIs prove this when the MassSpec detects radioactive isotopes in the supposed 1930s wine. Ratelle has an alibi, as does the person who bought the wine, Dr. Jonah Drake.

It turns out Davari had been mass producing fakes of expensive wines, with the help of Tom Scolla, a ‘security’ guard, to regularly transports expensive wines. The two had been faking the wines for three years, and claimed to have had Drake on the hook for more. Scolla, however, as an alibi: he was at a club. Interestingly, Scolla had given bone marrow to a cancer victim, his sister, who happened to be newly engaged to Jonah Drake. Samantha Wilson (nee Scolla) was in on the grift as well, but had fallen in love with Drake, and murdered Davari over an argument trying to get out.

Meanwhile, Mac Taylor visits from New York to surprise his girlfriend, in Vegas on business, only to find her mising, her hotel room tossed, and blood trace left everywhere.

Review  

Sara and Greg work the primary case of the wine.

Notes  

• Sara is still wearing her wedding ring, regardless of her talk with Grissom.
• Normally Sara is a soft touch for sob stories, but this time had no sympathy for Samantha.

Quotes  

Sara: Black tie. Poor guy was dressed to kill.
Greg: Or be killed.

Sara: He ate very well for his last meal.
Russell: Raw whale? Whale sushi? That’s gotta be illegal.
Sara: And disgusting, and immoral.