Tag: fraud

What’s in a Wine Name?

There’s nothing like a nice cool glass of rosé on a balmy summers evening. Whether you’re an adventurous type who likes to try a new wine every time or you have your go-to favourites, you put your trust in producers and retailers to deliver the products that they claim to be – but are they? Fraud in the food and beverage industry is becoming an all too common problem, whether it’s lower quality honey claiming to be Manuka, cheap oils passed off as extra virgin olive oil or even horse meat masquerading as beef, they’ve all hit the headlines for the wrong reasons.

“We were alerted to the ‘Frenchification’ of Spanish wine at the end of 2015. So, we launched an inquiry at all levels, from producers to importers to restaurants and distributors.”

Some food fakery is easier for a consumer to detect than others – glaringly obvious spelling mistakes on packaging is an immediate red flag, but for many consumers the only option is to take products at face value.

Do you really know what you’re sipping this summer?

In response to suggestions of cheap imports being passed off as French wines, the Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) based in France, undertook a survey to examine wines imported into France, especially from Spain.For French wine producers that lack protected geographical indication (Indication Géographique Protégée-IGP) status, competition can be tough. Spanish producers are challenging them, especially in varietal entry level wines. As such, temptation exists to pass off cheaper Spanish imports under their own brands [ . . . ]

Continue at TECHNOLOGY NETWORKS: What’s in a Wine Name? | Technology Networks



Pas de Merde has more stories about Wine fraud and less scandalous articles about wine in our Food & Wine category. Bon Appétit!

How could 10 million bottles of cheap Spanish rosé be passed off as French? Blame America

Our insatiable love for pink wine created a booming market that helped lay the groundwork for fraud.

Lovers of French wine are suddenly seeing red. Earlier this year, they feared they wouldn’t have enough of their beloved rosé to get them through the summer, because Americans are buying it all. Now it seems much of the vaunted French pink they’ve been consuming the past two years has in fact been cheap Spanish rosado.

France’s consumer fraud authority confirmed July 9 that over the past two years, unscrupulous wine merchants have passed off as many as 70,000 hectoliters — the equivalent of 10 million bottles — of cheap Spanish wine as more-expensive French rosé. That’s shocking news in a country where protesters have been known to stop tanker trucks with imported wines and empty their contents on the road near the border.

That giant sucking sound over the past few years was U.S. consumers discovering they love rosé and buying and drinking as much as they could. Demand soared, and the rosé market boomed, with many more labels appearing on U.S. shelves, and earlier in the year than ever before as brands competed for shelf space. Prices rose, and shippers tried to send as much as they could to take advantage

This kind of story plays well in the media, because it reinforces two popular stereotypes: Those crafty French, and the snooty wine snobs who can’t tell the difference between plonk and the good stuff. Snickering aside, it also highlights basic economics and current trends in the production and marketing of wine [ . . . ]

Continue reading at THE WASHINGTON POST: How could 10 million bottles of cheap Spanish rosé be passed off as French? Blame America. – The Washington Post

Bordeaux Wine Firm Found Guilty of Fraud

A leading Bordeaux négociant firm has been found guilty of fraud for passing off table wine as more lucrative appellation wine, and for illegally mixing appellations, vintages and châteaus to the extent that the labels no longer represented what was in the bottle. Bordeaux’s Criminal Tribunal handed down the guilty verdict April 5 against Grands Vins de Gironde (GVG), fining the company nearly $500,000 (with half the fine suspended).”It is a substantial offense,” said Judge Caroline Baret, telling the courtroom that the victims were both supermarket shoppers, who were being unfairly duped, and the image of French wine, which risked being tarnished in foreign markets.Eric Marin, GVG’s former director of purchasing and cellar manager, was also found guilty and given an $18,000 suspended fine. Charges related to a period when he was no longer in his post were dropped [ . . . ]

More at: Bordeaux Wine Firm Found Guilty of Fraud | News | News & Features | Wine Spectator