Well, its now official.  The twelve crafty wine fakers have gotten the French gavel and its off to prison for some and hefty fines for others.  As I wrote last week, E&J Gallo was sold a ridiculous amount of fake Pinot which was passed off on the world as Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir, which was in fact anything but.  After a year of investigations, the twelve culprits faced the music this week.

All in all, its thought that 18 million bottles of fake Pinot hit the market, mostly in the US.  The profits were huge for the swindlers, who are estimated to have reaped a combined profit of 7 million euros (approx. $9.5 million).  The odd thing?  Not a single US consumer complained.

Who's in the stocks? Gallo or the fakers?

But those in the Languedoc are angry; especially the judge, who declared, “the scale of the fraud caused severe damage for the wines of Languedoc for which the United States is an important outlet.”

Fines range from approximately $2,000 to $250,000 and some will spend one month to six months in jail.  The damage to the Red Bicyclette brand is pretty catastrophic and I’m curious to see Gallo’s next move.  According the their website, they are “deeply disappointed.”  Yeah.  That’s the understatement of the year.

I’m still eager to know:  How did this go unnoticed by Gallo?  And for so damn long?  And what exactly was in those bottles of Red Bicyclette Pinot?  We may never know…

I say we do the prison guards in France a favor and save them some money by replacing the convict’s afternoon foie gras snacks with some good old American Spam pucks.  I wonder if they’d notice the difference?

In what may be a massive raping and pillaging of the great Gallo’s wallet and operations in France, the French are investigating whether E&J Gallo was sold fake Pinot Noir.  And incredible amounts of it:  3.57 million gallons, to be precise.

Fueled by greed and the ever-flowing dollar that Gallo provides, some Languedoc vignerons may have packaged their cheap swill with a ‘Pinot’ label and slipped it off on Gallo, who then slipped it off on the world as Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir 2007.

Now I gotta be honest, when I first read this, I chuckled a bit.  Oh, silly Gallo, looks like you bit off more than you can chew on your French field trip when you were led into a dark alley and sold a trunk full of fake Rolexes.  But really, millions of gallons?  How is that possible?

Languedoc-Roussillon

The Languedoc-Roussillon region of France is immense, and holds the title as the largest wine-producing region in the world.  A third of the volume of all of France’s wine flows from here, most of it being of the Vin de Pays (“country wine”) designation.

Between 2006 and 2008, Languedoc exported 160 million bottles of Pinot Noir which is odd, considering the entire region produced only 67 million bottles of Pinot Noir.  You do the math, but that is a boatload, no, an aircraft carrier-load of fake wine.  How could this happen?  Greed, my friends, and a mega-producer like Gallo and their flagship Languedoc wine, Red Bicyclette, to support it.

The whole idea of Red Bicyclette kind of nauseates me.  The French, in their unwillingness to label their top AOC wines by grape varietal (instead using regional designation) have missed out on a huge share of the US wine market and they know this but remain stubborn.

Mr and Mrs Johnson will buy a “Pinot Noir” because they saw the movie Sideways, but wouldn’t know whether to drink a Gevrey-Chambertin or pour it over their pancakes.  And they know French wines are supposedly superior, but damn confusing, so in comes Gallo to bridge this gap.  An American wine producer moves into the French countryside, discards the AOC system, buys massive amounts of juice and sells varietal-labeled wine off France’s doorstep.  Brilliant, really.  A bottle of French Pinot Noir?  For under $10? Perfect!  And a cute man on a bike carrying baguettes?  Even more perfect.  Oo la la!

But I have a heart, don’t get me wrong.  I stand for the authenticity of wine, and granted the average Joe wouldn’t know the difference between 100% Pinot and a methanol-infused blend of Grape Kool-Aid, the whole thing stinks of the Wizard of Oz and the man behind the curtain.

You mean this isn't Pinot?!

And once that man is revealed, you kind of feel sorry for him.  His whole kingdom was based on a charade and now he’s exposed as a small, wimpering, lonely man.  Now this piece is not meant to persecute Gallo; sure, they’ve found a way to make millions of dollars by taking advantage of market forces, but the fact remains they may have been wronged on such a grand scale it’s staggering.   The sheer level of fraud stinks of thousands of barrels of sardines rotting in the Meditteranean sun.  And someone needs to face the stench.

As of now, after a year of investigations, 13 people have been arrested, including executives from two wineries, five co-operatives, négociant Ducasse and the conglomerate Sieur d’Arques.  French authorities are scheduled to reveal their final conclusions on February 17th and with millions of dollars at stake, its anybody’s guess how this will all shake down.  And questions remain:  what wines were passed off as Pinot?  And how did Gallo not notice?

In the meantime, keep sipping your Pinot but be careful where you purchase your Rolex.