French appeal court upholds sentences in Red Bicyclette Fake Pinot scam

Some rotten Pinot Noir from the 2011 vintage

French appeal court upholds sentences in Red Bicyclette Fake Pinot

Yesterday the French Appeal Court in Montpellier upheld the sentences handed down by a court in Carcassonne in February 2010 in the fake Pinot Noir scam.

However, the Appeal Court made considerable changes to their sentences.

The scam’s ringleader Claude Courset of the négociant company Ducasse based in Carcassonne, had his suspended prison sentence increased from six to nine months. However, his fine was cut by a third from 45,000€ to 30,000€.

Alain Maurel, Vignobles Alain Maurel and regional president of the Crédit Agricole bank, had his suspended sentence increased from three to four months but his fine was reduced by half from 30,000€ to 15,000€. Good news for a banker that the fine is reduced but does little for M.Maurel's reputation nor that of bankers.

The Sieur d’Arques co-operative, who made 1.3m€ from the scam, had its fine reduced from 180,000€ to 150,000€. Sadly Sieur d'Arques used to have a fine reputation – a pity that those involved in this scam have besmirched this.

Others were not so lucky Montblanc, the commercial arm of the Vignerons de Montblanc, had its fine doubled from 40,000€ to 80,000€. Bad news indeed for Montblanc, who have seen their export turnover drop from 3,394,000€ in the year to August 2007 to 824.000€ in 2008. By the year August 2010 this had collapsed to 317,700€.

Two directors of Caves Pierre Fabre had their fines increased: Jean-Paul Barral from 6000€ to 10,000€ and Didier Beltran from 5500€ to 8000€ with 3000€ of this total suspended.

The scam ran from January 2006 to March 2008. Some 18.5 million bottles of fake Pinot Noir were sold to E&J Gallo and Constellation Wine netting a profit of 7million€ for the fraudsters. A mix of grape varieties, mainly Merlot and Syrah, were passed off as Pinot Noir.

The appeal was held in early June in Montpellier. The decision should have been published on 21st September but a shortage of staff delayed the reporting process.


(Apologies that this post is a bit late. However, last night I was at Le Grand Bornand, where Orange/France Telecom appears to operate a selective system for internet connections – if you are a client of Orange it works fine but, if you are not, then it works poorly at best.) 

Red bicyclette – fake Pinot Noir appeal judgment delayed

Real Pinot Noir in Sancerre late August 2011

For those of you waiting impatiently for the appeal court judgment, which was due today, on those convicted in the fake Pinot Noir scandal the announcement of the judgment has been delayed due to a lack of staff. The judgment will now be announced on 12th October.

See details here.

There are a number of posts on Jim's Loire about the Fake Pinot case – here, here and here.


Shortage of staff

This seems to be a frequent complaint in France at the moment. La Nouvelle République recently ran a story on the difficulty of recruiting locals to pick grapes. As a result producers are increasingly hiring workers from Eastern Europe and in this particular instance from Bulgaria.

It is the same in the restaurant trade, perhaps particularly in rural areas. Marc Hammani (chef/proprietor at Auberge de Montpoupon) and Xavier Fortin (sommelier at La Promenade, Le Petit Pressigny) have both complained about the difficulty of recruiting waiting and kitchen staff holding back their businesses.

Fake Pinot Noir: Gallo statement

 

Sept 2009 true Pinot Noir awaiting sorting@Sancerre late September 2009

E&J Gallo has issued the following statement on the fake Pinot Noir. 

Susan Hensley, Vice President of  Public Relations for E. & J. Gallo Winery:

"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% of the total and is no longer selling any of this wine to customers.  We believe that the only French Pinot Noir that was potentially misrepresented to us would have been the 2006 vintage and prior.  We want to assure our consumers that this is not a health and safety issue and that we will continue to work with the appropriate U.S. authorities to determine any next steps required for potentially mislabeled Pinot Noir in the marketplace."  

The statement rather raises as many questions as it answers. 20% of the total of the fake Pinot Noir is still 3.6 million bottles. If Gallo only bought 20% of the fake Pinot Noir, who bought the remaining 80%. As far as I can see there is no mention in all the reports of the court proceeding of any other company who might have bought the false Pinot Noir.

'We believe that the only French Pinot Noir that was potentially misrepresented to us would have been the 2006 vintage and prior. 'I love the 'only' and the 'prior' – just brilliant!

The scam started in January 2006 – for bulk wine this would have presumably been for the 2005 vintage. It continued through to March 2008 when it was discovered by the French Suppression des Fraudes. Thus it would have included wine from the 2006 and, possibly 2007 but much less likely as the Fraud Squad were onto the case probably before the 2007 was shipped. It does raise the question of from where in Languedoc was the 2007 Pinot Noir sourced if demand remained at the level of the previous vintages. Was there enough genuine Pinot Noir available in Languedoc to satisfy Gallos requirements?   

According to the Gallo site the 2005 was 100% Pinot Noir, 2006 contained 85% Pinot Noir, 10% Grenache and 5% Syrah, while the 2007 has 88% Pinot Noir, 7% Syrah and 5% Grenache. Under US varietal labelling rules only 75% of a single named varietal needs to be in the blend. For Europe and Australia it is 85%.   

See previous posting on the Red Bicyclette scandal.

Also posting on Constellation as the other buyer.

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Fake Pinot Noir

 

True Pinot Noir: Sancerre

I see that the court in Carcassonne today passed sentence on those convicted in the fake Pinot Noir scam. Oceans of Pinot Noir were sold by various organisations including the cooperative Sieur d'Arques in Limoux and Ducasse, a négociant at 4 Avenue Thomas Edison, 11000 Carcassonne to E&J Gallo for their Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir. 

France's fraud department became suspicious during an audit at Ducasse when they discovered that Ducasse were buying Pinot Noir at 58€ per hectolitre when the normal market price for Pinot Noir was 97€, while local grape varieties could be bought for 45€. It also emerged that more Pinot Noir was being sold to Gallo than was produced in the whole of the Languedoc – around 50,000 hl a year. It is only in the cooler areas of Limoux that Pinot Noir can be successfully grown – the majority of Languedoc-Roussilon is far too hot for the Burgundian grape. Patches of Pinot Noir, however, can be found in various parts of the region. On 7th February 2009 Agrisalon reported that every year a company based in Limoux sold over 100,000 hls of Vin de Pays d'Oc Pinot Noir to the North American market.

The 12 defendants were found guilty of selling 18 million bottles (135,334 hectolitres) of fake Pinot Noir to Gallo. The fraud ran from January 2006 to March 2008 and during this time the defendants made a 7€ million profit. The court today handed down suspended jail sentences of between one and six months and levied fines of between 3000€ and 180,000€. Claude Courset of Ducasse received a six month suspended sentence and was fined 45,000€, while the Sieur d'Argues Co-operative was fined 180,000€. Sadly Sieur d'Arques used to have a high reputation and appeared to be a model co-operative.

There have recently been some suggestions that executives at E&J Gallo should have realised that they were being sold fake Pinot Noir. This seems to me to be terribly unfair – why should Gallo executives be expected to tell the difference between Pinot Noir and Carignan and Alicante Bouchet? Actually it was apparently Merlot and Syrah but given the size of the scam there might well have been some Carignan in it.

It is very sad that this scandal will have confirmed some people's view that wine is all about fakery and will hit all French wine, in particular the region of Languedoc-Roussillon. It undermines the efforts of many independent wine producers throughout France. The sort of producers that this blog hopes to play a part in celebrating and promoting.

See also Michel Smith's posting about the glories of Languedoc-Roussillon.