Reported by: Victoria Moore

Wine fraud is still prevalent today and it’s not just a collectors’ problem, restricted to rare and valuable bottles sold at auction.

The trade in bulk wine has often been accused of covering up cases of passing-off, with riper grapes from sunnier countries or regions adding stuffing to thin vintages from appellations with more saleable names. In the six months from December 2020 to May 2021, a joint Europol-Interpol operation seized 1.7 million litres of counterfeit drinks, most of it wine and vodka. Last month, it was reported that a winemaker in Spain is accused of a £22 million fraud, allegedly involving selling mislabelled wine into Spanish supermarkets. 

The tech world can offer tools in the fight-back against fraud. Blockchain, for example, can be deployed to create a digital ledger of each transaction a wine undergoes and every movement it makes. Many of the newer fine-wine platforms are already using blockchain to enhance traceability and assurance of provenance. This technology can also be applied to shipments of cheaper branded wines.  

How it pans out remains to be seen but blockchain has attracted some key support, including from Maureen Downey, an authority on wine fraud, and Jeffrey Grosset, a star riesling producer based in Australia’s Clare Valley.

Read full report: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/wine/wine-forgery-rife-how-avoid/