Some manage to make bladders look like lanterns. In this case, which hit the headlines, winegrowers and merchants from Languedoc managed to pass off Merlot and Syrah for Pinot Noir. Smart! It is sold almost twice as much as the other two. These wags mistook their customers for Americans. That’s good, they were!
Cooperative cellars and merchants in the dock
Let’s rewind the film to retrace this case. In March 2008, fraud prevention teams inspected the Ducasse trading company in Carcassonne. The large volumes of pinot in a region that produces little of it undoubtedly tipped them off. They quickly discover the pot-aux-roses. Fraudsters are selling ‘fake’ pinot noir to American merchants Gallo and Constellation Brands (owner of Robert Mondavi wines). Logically, the story continues in the criminal court. Thirteen defendants, including the managers of several cooperative cellars and merchants, are accused of deception on the substantial quality of the product or of complicity in deception. The Confédération paysanne and the Syndicat professionnelle des vins de Pays d’Oc have filed civil suits in this case, as this could seriously damage the image of Pays d’Oc wines.
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Several million euros in turnover
The investigators have indeed discovered that since 2006, suppliers have been delivering wine in bulk to the Ducasse company, which resold it to the Sieur d’Arques cooperative society, before shipping it to the United States. At what level of this pyramid did we know that this wine would be sold as pinot? At this stage of the story, there is room for doubt… We are talking about the equivalent of 460 tanker trucks and just over 16 million bottles, ie a turnover of several million euros. Because, to meet the growing demand of the American market (thanks to the film Sideways, released in 2005, which exploded the popularity of pinot noir), Constellation and Gallo bought from 2006 to 2008 more than three times the total production of pinot noir in Pays d’Oc… It must be believed that no one in these companies tasted the wines received! Note in passing that, in this case, these companies have never filed a complaint.
Conviction, appeal and cassation…
Following this first trial, the defendants were sentenced in February 2010 to suspended prison sentences and fines, ie 180,000 euros for the Sieur d’Arques company. But the matter does not end there. Because Ducasse and Sieur d’Arques are appealing. Hangover effect: in October 2011, the Montpellier Court of Appeal increased prison sentences and convictions. At the same time, American justice invites itself into this affair. A Los Angeles judge is proposing a $2.1 million settlement in a class action lawsuit against the companies Gallo and Constellation to compensate defrauded consumers. And in France ? In January 2014, the appeal in cassation, requested by the convicts, was rejected. Surprisingly, Languedoc has not suffered from a lack of love from the United States, which remains in the top 10 export markets in the region.
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