35,000 hectoliters, which They represent about four and a half million bottles, of Spanish wine crossed the Pyrenean border in 2013, a year of poor harvest in Bordeaux, and became French wine through fraud.
The act, for which they used cistern roads, has now been seen for sentencing, condemning five people with Penalties of up to two years in prison in most caseshaving formed part of a network that marketed Spanish wine that entered France in bulk as Bordeaux wine and French table wine.
Operating between 2014 and 2016, the network would have passed those 35,000 hectoliters through different wines from Bordeaux appellations of origin such as Saint-Émilion, Pomerol, Saint-Julien and Margauxsome of the most reputable in French wine, but it was also marketed as French table wine, since the starting price of this product is still higher than that of Spanish table wine.
According to specialized portals such as Vitispherethe value of the fraud exceeds 1.2 million euros and, by quantity of wine and by value, it would mean one of the biggest scams in history within French wine.
Following the judgment of the Bordeaux Judicial Court, several of those involved will not be able to return to work on the wine, weighing on them a disqualification, and prison terms and fines vary depending on their role in this plot that includes falsification of documents, bottling of fraudulent wines, intermediation and sale, which also meant that there were several civil accusations during the trial.
The wines entered more than 130 tanker trucks from Spain. ©iStock.
This is the case of five organizations related to farmers, viticulturists and winemakers within Bordeaux such as INAO, Confédération Paysanne, Fédération des Grands Vins de Bordeaux, Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux and Fédération des Négociants de Bordeaux et de Libourne, which are They also presented as private accusations in the trial, held during the month of October 2022, and whose sentence was handed down on January 26, 2023.
In this way, they explain from Vitisphere there would be two equations inside the fraud. The first was made up of Daniel Banchereau, Sylvie Bernard, Jean-Sébastien Laflèche and Michel Gilin, who were in charge of buying Spanish wines through a carrier that was shipping Spanish wine. However, this freight was not specified to the Laflèche company, but was sent to Celliers Vinicoles du Blayais, the winery where Gilin works and who was the one who magically transmuted 130 cisterns of Spanish wine into French table wine.
Wine expert in 24 hours (Essay)
On the other hand, a second equation includes the fictitious shipments from CVB to Defivin, another company in charge of marketing the wine, which was where the converted Spanish wine into wine from different appellations of origin such as Margaux, Saint-Julien or Montagne Saint-Émilionand that it was managed by Fabien Figerou, the fifth defendant in this massive and multimillionaire scam.
Images | iStock EoNaYa / iStock dimarik
In DAP | This is the only wine Rosalía likes: French, it was recommended to her by Pharrell Williams and you can buy it without spending a penny
In DAP | Discovering txakoli, the white king of Basque wine: its denominations of origin, how to identify it and eight recipes to pair it
