Although we have a very strict wine law in Europe (only in Europe) some countries have to deal with corrupt bodegas/wine makers…
Austria
Perhaps one of the best-known wine scandals that many people remember is that from Austria in the mid-1980s when three winegrowers added antifreeze to their wine to boost alcohol content. The reason for this was the great success of German sweet wines at the time. When this country could no longer meet the demand for cheap sweet white wine, people had to rely on neighboring Austria to keep up with production. Because making a good sweet white wine is relatively labor-intensive and as a result the production costs increased, people turned to an unauthorized practice: artificial sweetening with diethylene glycol (a component of antifreeze). The result was a sweet white wine that was obtained without too much effort, resulting in huge profit margins, so "Big business". It lasted until the fraud was discovered in 1985 and a major scandal broke out. As a result, many winegrowers went bankrupt and the sale of Austrian wines fell to a historic low level.
Italy
Wine producers from the northern Italian Veronello region cheerfully messed up with a cheap "slobber wine". The company of Bruno Castagna was involved in the so-called "methanol scandal" in 1986, in which around ten people became blind and another twenty were killed by drinking wine with methanol added by this producer. During a check in 2007, a large quantity of chemicals were found again in the domain of the same wine producer and this time it turned out that more than twenty wine domains were involved in this large-scale fraud. A batch of around 70 million liters of wine appears to be harmful to health thanks to the addition of carcinogenic fertilizers and hydrochloric acid. For example, they tried to make wine with as few grapes as possible, which was sweetened with sugar and then treated with hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid to process and hide the added sugar for checks. In the end, a wine was produced in this way that contained only 20-40% of grapes, which meant that the production costs only amounted to around 10% of what normally would have been the cost.
Another scandal that received extensive attention in the Italian press was that of the wines of Brunello di Montalcino (these wines are among the very best wines in the world) from the village of the same name in southern Tuscany. There, fourteen wine producers are suspected of having added grape varieties other than those required by the government to make their top wines. There are strong suspicions that merlot would have been used instead of the brunello grape to produce these world-famous expensive Brunello wines ...
Czech Republic
It happened in the Czech Republic too. The police was investigating a major wine scandal. It was all about one of the country's largest wine producers, suspected of having "falsified" more than a million liters of wine. The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspectorate strongly suspects that wines from unknown grape varieties are sold as Chardonnay, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. The company Templárské sklepy Cejkovice is allegedly involved in this fraud. They are also accused of having made inspectors unable to perform their inspection duties.
Who else?
Years ago, Belgium also had its own wine scandal. Schoonhoven Castle turned out to sell imported wine as Belgian wine. Much to the horror of some well-known Belgian sommeliers who stood on the back label of these wines as a reference.
The South African "Wine and Spirits Board" has started a study into the production of, among other things, the aromatic "Sauvignon Blanc" wines. Because these South African wines quickly lose their bouquet in warm weather, a thriving trade in synthetic aromas seems to have emerged. Wine expert Michael Fridjhon claims that wine festivals regularly sell synthetic aromas and flavorings "under the table" and that these substances are also easily available on the internet.
At an auction in England, the prestigious wines of Pétrus were sold at a record price. It turned out that the bottle contained a much lower quality of Spanish wine…
In France they raided a winegrower in the Burgundy region. The man sold expensive Grand Cru wines from Savigny-les-Beaune to which he had added a low-quality Algerian wine...
In the year 2002, the French judiciary invaded around 15 castles in Bordeaux. Owned by the Belgian Geens. He would have distorted the designation of origin of around 10,000,000 bottles of wine ...
And finally this:
In the Netherlands we have a big chain of supermarkets called Albert Heijn. Their supermarkets in the USA are known under the name Giant.
Source: Keuringsdienst van waarde
Albert Heijn's house wine is not wine; it is made from dried must, to which yeast and distilled water is added. That’s what was made plausible in an exciting episode of the Keuringsdienst van Waarde (a kind of consumer protect television program in The Netherlands).
The Inspection Service received a letter from an anonymous viewer claiming that part of the wine that enters our country is actually thickened grape juice, to which water is added afterwards. The program called all kinds of companies and authorities and discovered that it is about "B-class and C-class brand" wines that are actually produced in such a way. Albert Heijn's house wine would be one of them.
According to European wine legislation, it is not permitted to add water to wine. Wine should come entirely from grapes. But it does happen, according to a number of must-sellers - partly because the must concentrate is cheaper to produce and transport than bottled wine. You also do not have to pay alcohol tax, because it is technically not alcohol.
Albert Heijn strongly denies the above.
Fortunately, all the aforementioned (alleged) wine scandals are the well-known exception to the rule and you therefore do not have to moderate your wine consumption as far as I am concerned, shit happens in any branch. Let’s just hope that the scammers will end up in jail for the rest of their lives (ONLY WATER AND BREAD please!).
Roel Peters RP-Vinos USA
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