Wine producers, traders guilty

A dozen wine producers and traders were found guilty of having supplied an American trader with mislabeled “pinot noir” wines, and six were handed a suspended prison sentence.

In a rare case pitting some local French producers from the southwest of the country against big U.S. traders E. & J. Gallo, the president of the criminal court in this medieval walled town said on Wednesday that “there has been fraud.”

In 2008, French customs found that during three years, some 13.5 million litres of mislabelled wine had been sold to Gallo. The producers and traders were accused of deliberately mislabelling the wine with a more expensive variety of grape.

The ordinary wines from the region sell at some 45 euros ($64) per 100 litres against 97 euros ($138) for Pinot Noir – well known abroad for its use in Burgundy wines and prized by American drinkers who favour single-grape wines over blended wines like Bordeaux.

Claude Courset of the Ducasse wine traders was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison sentence and has to pay a fine of 45,000 euros ($64,000). The prosecutor asked for a firm prison sentence.

Five other people were sentenced to fines of between 3,000 ($4,285) and 6,000 euros ($8,580) and the remaining six for less than that.

The Sieur d’Arques trading firm of Limoux was ordered to pay 180,000 euros ($257,000) in penalties

Courset was not present at the court case.

“The sentence was below what was asked by the prosecutor, that is re-assuring,” said his lawyer, Pierre Dunac, adding he was likely to appeal.

E. & J. Gallo, the largest family-owned U.S. winery, had bought the wine for its Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir line.

According to Gallo’s winemaking notes, the 2007 Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir was sourced from several areas within the Languedoc Roussillon region in Southern France.

The notes describe the wine as showcasing “dark fruit aromas and flavours of black cherry and ripe plum.”

“When more information becomes available to us from the authorities,” Gallo’s Susan Hensley wrote last week, “we will move quickly to ensure that the trust people place in our company and our wines is not put at risk.”

(courtesy The Montreal Gazette)