Wine duping practices may happen regularly

Gallo's Red Bicyclette fiasco may not be a one-off in the wine trade, some industry insiders believe.

The French courts have passed guilty verdicts on producers who sold wine to Gallo as Pinot Noir when it was actually Merlot and Syrah.

Without going through very lengthy and expensive testing, it's hard to prove that what is in the bottle is genuine, claimed Thierry's commercial director Matthew Dickinson. "I'm sure this kind of fraud can happen quite often and probably happens quite regularly," he said.

"Unfortunately, like in any industry there is a proportion of people who are not as straight or as honest as we would like.

"It's also a very hard job for buyers to assess as there is a lot of different clonal varietals and regional diversity across all wines."

Off-Piste Wines director Paul Letheren said wine imported in bulk is routinely tested for levels of alcohol, CO2, sulphur and acidity, and compared with bottled samples.
But he added: "We don't actually analyse whether a wine is, say, Sauvignon Blanc and I'm not sure how easy it is to do. The onus is on the brand owner. There are a few unscrupulous people but they would get found out quite quickly because the wine would just taste different."

Wine writer Charles Metcalfe, said it's quite difficult for buyers as there are a certain amount of varietals from place to place that are not so obviously typical.
"It means historically this kind of fraud has been quite common, but now rules are much tighter.

• Sommeliers