"However, this system is vulnerable to a very simple threat: a dishonest seller can make a copy of a real bottle with a token, fill it with wine of lower quality, and either steal you..."

The argument around “someone that doesn’t care about tokens” is weak because that applies to any authenticity solution.

The idea behind the authenticity guarantees would be that every step along the way, you add a record that the object has passed through your step. Otherwise I agree this won’t work.

If someone adds a record, but does fill the bottle with cheaper wine, the first person that catches them will blacklist that actor.