A major French wine producer, not yet named, has been charged with selling over 13 million gallons of ordinary wine in bottles labeled with two highly-regarded and regulated wines.
Most of the ordinary red was passed off as Côtes du Rhône wine, but 10,000 litres was passed off as Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Both wines are AOC, a government-supported designation that means they are made in a particular area from particular grapes, using designated methods. And that they are generally higher-priced than an ordinary bottle.
The agency that brought the charges has quite a name itself: Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes (DGCDRF). That’s the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Repression, for English-speakers. The CEO of the offending firm has been indicted for deception and fraud.
It’s not the first instance of large-scale wine fraud; a well-known producer got a jail term for a 2016 fraud that saw cheap and quality wines blended together for sale in high-priced bottles.
