Seized 30,000 bottles of counterfeit wine in Italy
An ongoing investigation has provided that thousands of Italian table wines were sold for prestigious wines.
After the affair of Rudy Kurniawan in France, after Spain, now is the turn of Italy to be affected by a large fraud case involving wines.
According to the Italian press last Friday several people were arrested in Italy as part of an investigation opened by the prosecutor of Siena (Tuscany) in March last scam. It is through the repeated complaints from many consumers that are not finding the expected quality that the scam could be brought to light.
More than 30,000 bottles of great Italian wines including Brunello di Montalcino were counterfeit. Italian table wine was purchased about 1 euro per bottle then bottled and labeled under new names property shown on labels, in prestigious Italian appellations such as Sagrantino di Montefalco DOCG Brunello di Montalcino DOCG Chianti DOCG. For information DOCG means “Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita”, the equivalent to the french AOC / AOP. For some bottles counterfeit names on labels properties actually exist, others are simply invented names .
The wines were sold a thirty euros (or $ 40) on the Italian market but also for export and on the internet. Damages are estimated at several hundred thousand euros.
According to the Italian media selling fake bottles are made in support of false documents of quality certification. Tuscany also seems not to be the only region cheated. Other Italian regions such as Lazio, Liguria and Umbria are also affected by the Italian police.
According to the Farmers Federation reported an increase in fraud wines in Italy 102% over the last five years. Only on the 2013 Italian police asked for the equivalent of € 31 million counterfeit bottles.
“Like all major international brands, we are naturally victims of attempted counterfeiting … This situation is detrimental to our image so that we are recognized globally for our reliability and our ability to ensure quality control particularly high. The damage to the image of the industry is hard to quantify but very grave. Unfortunately this happens quite a lot, because these products are in high demand by foreign markets ” Fabrizio Bindocci, winemaker at Tenuta San Filippo Fanti (Brunello di Montalcino DOCG) and the head of the Consortium of Brunello di Montalcino.
Jonathan Choukroun Chicheportiche