Dr Vino's wine blog

The British tabloid The Sun reports on wine fraud at a British supermarket: a wine consumer in Britain says he bought an obviously fake bottle of Louis Jadot Pouilly-Fuissé on closeout at Tesco. The consumer says that the label was so bad that it “looked photocopied” and had a screwcap instead of the normal cork closure. Moreover, he told The Sun, that it didn’t pass his taste test at home: “Instead of a nice French Burgundy, this was a cheap German Hock or Liebfraumilch.” A Tesco spokesperson admitted to finding “a small number of counterfeit bottles” and said that they were investigating the matter. (Click for label photos.)

Most wine counterfeiting seems to happen with supremely expensive wines, where the profits can be great on a very few number of units sold. Also, fewer people are aware of what a ’21 Petrus label should look like let alone what it should taste like. But with a supermarket brands, it seems that fraud could be more easily spotted given the large number of bottles that would need to be sold (thus more eyeballs) and consumer expectations for consistency, either in the label art or the taste. Generally, people want a fake Rolex, not a fake Timex.

But passing off cheap red wine as pinot noir, that’s another story…