This seems like a generic scammer. He didn't even have the brain to run it as a pyramid scheme, you certainly don't want your big clients to only ever receive 1 bottle.
Just guessing, but I'd say that it's harder to pay back the original people because they're not being paid in cash, they're being paid in a harder-to-get product.
Or the guy simply forgot about the older orders...
I didn't RTFA tell me he at least offered to cellar the wines for then at an extra cost then have lots of different people expensive tours of 'their' wine racks?
