You thought to taste a good French rosé? Think again…

Millions of liters of Spanish rosé were sold as French wine: this mbadive deception, brought to light by the repression of fraud, illustrates the harshness of the confrontation between Spanish and French winemakers.

After having received alerts at the end of 2015 on the francization of Spanish wines, the DGCCRF launched a survey in 2016 and 2017.

According to the repression of frauds, the cases of francization recorded concern more than 70,000 hectoliters of wine. That's the equivalent of 10 million bottles of rosé.

"Bottled in France", really?

According to the establishments, the quantities of wine presented fraudulently range from 2,000 to 34,500 hectoliters. "Spanish wines were sold in bulk as" French wine "or even by usurping a French IGP name," says the DGCCRF in its survey report on Monday.

In total, 743 establishments were controlled in two years: "22% of the establishments visited in 2016 and 15% of establishments visited in 2017 were subject to non-conformities ranging from confusing presentation to Frenchization", she says.

A flower of lily, a French badade, the mentions "Produced in France" or "Bottled in France" were put forward while the mention of origin "Wine of Spain" or "Wine of the European community" appeared on the back of the bottle and not legible.

The investigation of the repression of fraud was "extended to cafes, hotels and restaurants to check in particular the origin of wines sold in the pitcher or glbad": 2,414 establishments were thus controlled.

Investigations Among the deficiencies, the authors noted "the absence of a mention of origin of the wine on the wine list, while the confusion is maintained by the use of French-sounding trade names", but also by the "voluntary Francisations of the origin". ", while it was Spanish wine.

The reason for this fraud?

" It's a question of price ", answers to AFP Jérôme Despey, Secretary General FNSEA and winemaker in the Hérault. "The bulk Spanish rosé was sold in 2016 at around 0.35 euro per liter, at the French level it was on average 0.85 euro per liter, it was double that!", He recalls. 19659004] A distortion of competition due in large part to large production surpluses in Spain in 2016, which resulted in price declines.

However, the situation recovered at the 2017 harvest, which was very the entire European Union, notes Mr. Despey, for whom these controls are "in the right direction": "We must continue to have a pressure of controls so that such things can not happen again", he said. asked, also calling on the government to put in place "clearer labeling on the origin of products."

"I asked the DGCCRF (..) to continue its controls in the sector on a regular basis", badured Delphine Gény-Stephann, Secretary of State for the Economy, recalling that France is the second largest producer of wine

Two years in prison

This war between winemakers in southern France and Spain had resulted in very strong tensions in 2017: winegrowers actions to protest against these imports s' were multiplied in the Gard, Hérault, Aude and Pyrénées-Orientales.

The French and Spanish Ministers of Agriculture had met almost a year ago to the day in Paris, to try to 'bury the hatchet. This meeting has since enabled the establishment of tools to limit price volatility, according to Mr. Despey

In the case of scammers detected, compliance orders, minutes and procedures Penalties for deception were launched by the DGCCRF, which specifies that if "serious deficiencies" were noted, "which may relate to large volumes", "the controls showed that the regulations were correctly applied in the majority of cases".

The penalties for misleading commercial practice are two years' imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 euros, which can be raised to 10% of the annual average turnover, a reminder of the repression of fraud.