Local Nose Tony Duggan sniffed out an international Pinot Noir scandal...what intrigue!

Just imagine. 18 Million Bottles of fake Pinot Noir on the market!

It’s true! A court case in France has just finished where two merchants, Ducasse and Sieur d'Arques, as well as several cooperatives in Languedoc were found guilty of supplying this huge quantity (135 000 hectoliters) of fake pinot noir wine to E & J Gallo (USA) and sold under their Red Bicyclette brand between 2006 and 2008.

The fraud was discovered by a French customs officer who queried the low export price for the bulk wine during an audit only to find that the volume of pinot noir exported from the Languedoc exceeded the total amount harvested (15000 hl)! The only answer was that apparently merlot and syrah were slipped in the bottles under the guise of pinot noir!

For their criminal enterprise, the guilty parties received (only*) suspended sentences of up to two years and fines up to Euro 180,000.

E&J Gallo did not take part in the court case and in fact did not even attend. A Gallo vice president, Susan Hensley, released a statement saying, "We are deeply disappointed to learn today that our supplier Sieur d'Arques has been found guilty of selling falsely labeled French Pinot Noir as recently as March of 2008.

Based on the available information of the Pinot Noir that the French courts have investigated, Gallo imported less than 20 percent of the total and is no longer selling any of this wine to customers." Hensley added that they "believe that the only French Pinot Noir that was potentially misrepresented to us would have been the 2006 vintage and prior." In a statement on its website it said it was "deeply disappointed" to learn its supplier, Sieur d'Arques, had been found guilty of selling falsely labeled French Pinot Noir.

A lawyer for Sieur d'Arques, Jean-Marie Bourland, told Agence France-Presse: "There is no prejudice. Not a single American consumer complained."
Regardless of consumer indifference to what was or was not in the bottle, US authorities are investigating potential mislabeling infractions.

It's unlikely that Languedoc will suffer from this scandal but the reputation of E&J Gallo has already suffered and its quality control questioned. Interestingly it seems that American supermarket wine shoppers will buy anything as long as the label states “Pinot Noir”!

* Author's note



Contributed by Tony Duggan
Tony is a guest lecturer on French wines for the Singapore Polytechnic wine education program.