Deceit...*

Mr. Hill, 36, was a longtime Napa vineyard manager who worked his way up from agricultural pest control to stake a claim as a maker of $100 wines.

He could hold a busload of tourists spellbound with homespun stories of a vintner’s life. Mr. Hill had a knack for marketing, getting Hill Wine Company bottles on the United Airlines planes shuttling American athletes to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. He continued to work buying and selling grapes and bulk wine and managing fields for big wineries and small growers.

It was all built on quicksand. The fancy winery was more than Mr. Hill could afford, and the expenses of operating the business quickly outpaced his income. He was soon deeply in debt and resorting to deceptions like substituting cheaper merlot and malbec grapes for the expensive Napa cabernet sauvignon advertised on the wine labels, according to court documents.  

Napa County prosecutors have charged him with two felonies, on two occasions in October 2013 he stole grapes that his crew was harvesting for another winemaker and diverted them to his own winery.

Hill Wine has filed for bankruptcy and owes more than $8 million to creditors.

If you think no one is watching.!! Think again. Just a thought.