crime in the wine world

Truth in Advertising

Posted: July 8, 2009 By James Suckling

I get sick and tired of some wine merchants misusing my scores. And I have to wonder how many of the other scores or ratings they use to flog wines they misrepresent. Just the other day a wine merchant friend from Hong Kong e-mailed me with an offer from a wine broker in Switzerland that included my scores and the Wine Advocate ’s on 2004 Brunello di Montalcino.

News & Features : News

French Authorities Investigate Suspected Fake Pinot Noir

Languedoc vignerons stand accused of exporting cheaper types of wine as Pinot; Gallo's Red Bicyclette may be a victim of the scandal

Posted: February 13, 2009 By Mitch Frank, Tim Fish

Blogs : Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth

Paul Jaboulet Aîné Takes on Wine Fraud

Posted: January 16, 2009 By James Molesworth

Wine fraud continues to be a growing problem. There are more consumers competing for the world's high-end bottlings, both via retail and the secondary market. Since many of these wines are made in limited amounts (that won't ever increase in the case of single-vineyard wines), the increased demand is feeding the growth of this insidious problem.

News & Features : Unfiltered

Unfiltered: Jamie-Lynn Sigler Undresses for a Cause

Plus, caveat emptor at a Paris auction, ill-advised jug-wine anesthesia, St.-Emilion gets un-reclassified, again, and Foster's unveils the largest winery-based solar energy system in the U.S.

Posted: January 8, 2009

News & Features : News & Features

Unfiltered: Moët Offers Customers Celebrity Treatment

Plus, a new documentary on Le Cirque, multipurpose eco-friendly wine boxes, a winery unwittingly joins the bottled water business, an economically optimistic new wine and a bistro that babies its customers, literally

Posted: December 18, 2008

Blogs : James Suckling Uncorked

Drinking Fake Sassicaia

Posted: December 11, 2008 By James Suckling

I drank some fake Sassicaia last weekend at a friend’s house near Pisa. The wine wasn’t mine, but I told my friend that his bottle didn’t make sense. The big giveaway was the branded cork that didn’t have a vintage printed on it.

Nov. 15, 2008 Issue : News

Fight Against Counterfeiting Goes Atomic

Posted: November 15, 2008 By Augustus Weed

Collecting : Collecting News

Fighting Faux Wine

New authentication and tracking systems could help wineries and collectors keep counterfeit bottles out of the market

Posted: November 12, 2008 By Augustus Weed

News & Features : News

Brunello Will Remain 100 Percent Sangiovese

Producers association votes for no change in appellation rules, but leaves several issues unaddressed

Posted: October 28, 2008 By Jo Cooke

Blogs : Harvey Steiman At Large

Small vs. Big, and the Brunello Flap

Posted: October 23, 2008 By Harvey Steiman

The magistrate investigating makers of Brunello di Montalcino and Rosso di Montalcino has cleared some of the wineries he had suspected of using grapes other than Sangiovese. At the same time, without naming names, he has said that 172,000 cases have tested positive for grapes other than Sangiovese.

Blogs : James Suckling Uncorked

Brunello Should Be Brunello

Posted: October 23, 2008 By James Suckling

I had a quick lunch yesterday at my office with Enrico Viglierchio, general manager of Banfi, the large American-owned Brunello di Montalcino producer, and he looked relieved as we drank a bottle of his 2003 Castello Banfi Brunello di Montalcino Poggio alle Mura.