Huge new French scam

[Peter Creasey]

Côtes du Rhône scam sold 66 million bottles of fake wine

The extent of a large-scale wine fraud in the Côtes du Rhône has been unveiled, amounting to 66.5 million bottles of counterfeit wine.

The scam is being described as a “a massive misuse of the Côtes du Rhône label” by French authorities, after Guillaume Ryckwaert, CEO of France’s largest bulk wine negociant Raphaël Michel was arrested last year on suspicion of passing off cheap wine from outside the Rhône as Côtes du Rhône AOC as well as wine from the Chateauneuf-du-Pape AOP.

French Scam

. . . . Pete

 

[Keith Levenberg]

The fraud was uncovered when the wines proved potable.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
The fraud was uncovered when the wines proved potable.

Where's the Like button again?

Mark Lipton

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
The fraud was uncovered when the wines proved potable.

Where's the Like button again?

On some other bored, with the smileys.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Peter Creasey:
Huge new French scam

Côtes du Rhône scam sold 66 million bottles of fake wine

I read more about this recently. The cellar-master claims "whoops!" and protests that he has to move 18,000 cases a day, he gets confused, blah blah blah.

Funny that the mistakes always seem to earn money. Gosh.

I do like this line in the Harper's piece: French authorities estimate 15% of the annual output of the Côtes du Rhône appellation between 2013 and 2016 was counterfeit.

 

[mark e]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
The fraud was uncovered when the wines proved potable.

Where's the Like button again?

Mark Lipton

 

[Peter Creasey]

And more details...

Scale of Côtes du Rhône wine fraud “massive”

. . . . Pete

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

The scale is phenomenal. Although I don't think the article has the math right, it says 5.5 million cases over three years, which would be about 5% of the annual CdR production. Still, potentially enough to drive down prices, not to mention trash the regional image when publicized. No wonder the producers have joined the suit.