| Abstract: |
A French judge has ruled in the case of the faux Red Bicyclette. A court in Carcassonne handed out suspended jail terms and fines on Wednesday to 12 members of the Languedoc wine industry for selling millions of bottles of Pinot Noir to Gallo for its Red Bicyclette label that were illegally cut with cheaper Merlot and Syrah. The defendants, including figures from various vineyards, cooperatives, a broker, the wine merchant Ducasse and the large cooperative Sieur d'Arques, were convicted of selling the equivalent of 18 million bottles of falsely labeled wine. The court gave them suspended jail sentences of between one and six months and fines from 3,000 to 180,000 euros. The judge said that, "the scale of the fraud caused severe prejudice to the wines of Languedoc in the United States. |
