FRANCE: Wine fraud is on the rise but new technology promises a unique ID on each bottle

Record ID: 1473441

  • Title: FRANCE: Wine fraud is on the rise but new technology promises a unique ID on each bottle
  • Date: 17th March 2010
  • Summary: MOREY SAINT DENIS, FRANCE (FEBRUARY 26, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WORKERS IN VINEYARD LAURENT PONSOT IN FRONT OF HIS CASTLE IN HIS VINEYARD (SOUNDBITE) (French) WINEMAKER LAURENT PONSOT, SAYING "In that auction there was some Clos St Denis 1945. But we've only been making Clos St Denis only since 1982. There was no chance that wine existed. Then tried checked the other bottles on sale that day, and I realised from here in my office that half of them were probably fake." VARIOUS OF LAURENT PONSOT IN HIS CELLAR AND LOOKING AT WINE BOTTLES PONSOT TASTING HIS WINE FROM THE BARREL LABEL MAKING MACHINE TECHNICIAN AT WORK BOTTLES BEING TAGGED VARIOUS OF PROOFTAG ON BOTTLE AND BUBBLE CODE TEST
  • Embargoed: 31st March 2010 23:55
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVAE5LM3IKX5AZ0MQQRJ5S5GSGSS
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The challenge of counterfeit wine is threatening to take the fizz out of the industry. As the Pinot noir scandal showed last month, when a dozen wine producers and traders were sentenced by a French court for mislabelling 13.5 million litres of wine sold to Gallo, Constellation and other US distributors, what's behind the label is far from clear. And the tampering touches the low end of the market as much as the top end.
    The region synonymous with Pinot noir, Burgundy is no exception. Some of its most famous appellations are victim of forgery. It might say Romani Conti on the fence of the renowned vineyard, but sometimes what's in the bottle is not what's on the label.
    According to Clive Coates, master of wine now retired in Burgundy, the extreme rise in price of ultra-premium wines has led to a startling increase in the fraudulent labelling and sale of fake wines:
    "You've got two sides of this, you've got the Gallo scandal if you'll call it that, at that sort of level, and who knows how much of that goes on," said Coates. "And then there's the side of the very expensive bottles, you know, magnums of 1929 Muton, magnum of Petrus 1982, the sort of things that fetch high prices at auction. And I am quite certain there is a lot of quite dubious bottles there. But I think what it boils down to at the end of the day is what I would call caveat emptor, let the buyer beware: it's a silly person who pays silly prices without having done the homework, millionaires who probably cannot tell the difference between Petrus and Romani Conti," he said.
    Laurent Ponsot used to be a famous Burgundian wine grower, but now he is an amateur detective too. The story started in April last year, when a friend called him to tell him that Acker Merrall & Condit, one of New York's most energetic fine wine auctioneers, was putting under the hammer 107 bottles of one of his most famous crus. But something wasn't right.
    "In that auction there was some Clos St Denis 1945. But we've only been making Clos St Denis only since 1982. There was no chance that wine existed. Then tried checked the other bottles on sale that day, and I realised from here in my office that half of them were probably fake," says Ponsot.
    Two weeks ago he handed over the bulk of his research to the FBI in New York. Now he can go back to what he does best, making excellent wines. But to be on the safe side, he decided to apply state of the art technology to protect his bottles, which cost from a hundred euros to a few thousands, from forgery.
    Five other Burgundy winemakers have followed suit.
    The device is a small tag which contains a unique pattern of bubbles, plus a serial number. The consumer can log in the number on the internet and obtain a photo of the bubble tag of that specific bottle. Visually, you can compare the pattern of the bubbles, which is random and unique. This system of authentication called Prooftag was invented by chance by a Toulouse firm producing electronic components. The glue started to sizzle up and form random bubbles, and it was realised that this bubble pattern could be used for anti- fraud purposes. To date, 28 chateaux have bought into the technology including Bordeaux Chateau Latour, Burgundy Domaine des Comtes Lafon and Napa Valley Hartwell Estate, to name but a few.
    Frank Bourrieris is the marketing director of Prooftag. Asked if the interest of the wine producer in the tag shows the depth of the wine fraud, he says: "It's a difficult question. What I believe is that the stock of fake wine is growing, because a counterfeiter can fake any kind of wine from any year."
    "What is dramatic for winemakers is that if they don't take action right now, there might be counterfeit of the wine they are producing today but in ten years, or twenty years, from now".
    A 3D tag is more difficult to copy than bar codes or holograms. The bubble technology is also currently sold to Swiss watch makers, the cosmetic industry and governments to proof documents. Costs range from 20 cents to one Euro per tag.
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