Additives, Adulterations and Even Fraud in the World of Wine
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
Last week I presented the ongoing practice of certain winemakers who add water to their wines to reduce alcohol and/or increase volume.
While not an ethical way of producing wines, this is not an illegal practice. Several readers inquired if there are any additional additives in wines, or perhaps wines that may have been found to be adulterated by other means. Even worse, taking this argument to an extreme, have there been instances of illegally created wines sold to unsuspecting consumers?
This week, in the limited space allotted to my column, I’m focusing on (brief) insights into these three darker, even nefarious, sides of winemaking.
- Additional additives. Ever notice an exceptionally vivid, dark hue to a red wine? Ever wonder why the same grape varietal from the same region can produce different hues of red or purple coloring? The answer may be the additive Mega Purple. Used as a color enhancer, this additive is natural, sold commercially and, at times, applied generously.
Ironically, federal law permits the use in winemaking of a number of chemicals, including pesticides, herbicides, equipment cleaning chemicals and sulphite preservatives.
- Adulteration. If a particular appellation is not noted on an American wine label, it indicates that the required minimum percentage of grapes from that area may have been from other regions – domestic or foreign. There have been reports of ocean-going tankers traveling up the Pacific Coast laden with large stainless-steel tanks of grape juice from South America, notably Chile. The fruit-forward West Coast Cabernet Sauvignon you’ve recently enjoyed may have truly been an international wine.
At mega wine factories, massive quantities of grapes are harvested by industrial-size machines that suck in rotten grapes, leaves, twigs and unlucky insects. These can cause chemical reactions in wines that trigger a number of adverse reactions in humans, such as headaches and digestive problems.
Industrial wines may also legally include sugar, acetaldehyde, dimethyl dicarbonate and ethyl acetate, further adulterating the wines.
In mid-1980s Austria, a biologist added diethylene glycol – a chemical used in producing anti-freeze – to cheap, inferior wines to enhance the flavor and body of over one million gallons of wine. The perpetrators were discovered, arrested and convicted. In its wake, Austrian wine sales plummeted 80 percent.
Several years later, a copy-cat crime was perpetrated on unsuspecting Italians. Lethal doses of methyl alcohol, or methanol, were added to northwestern Italian wines, this time with disastrous effects. More than 20 people died and scores of consumers became permanently blind.
In another adulteration crime, in 2008, undercover Italian police, posing as sommeliers, discovered that up to 90 million bottles of low-end Italian wines had been adulterated with fertilizers, hydrochloric acid and/or sulfuric acid. The intent was to stretch the volume of the wine by adding water and sugar. The perpetrators used the industrial acids to break the sugar down into glucose and fructose, which are allowable and prevented detection.
- Fraudulent Wines. I read last week that a French court convicted over a dozen wine industry insiders of representing inexpensive wines from Spain as Bordeaux-provenance offerings. Winemakers across France were outraged; French consumers were nonplussed.
Here’s what investigators uncovered: Through a vast and underground international network, hundreds of tanker trucks brought Spanish wines across the Pyrenees to a warehouse company in southern France. False documents were created, representing the wines as from France, allowing them to be legally shipped in-country.
Next, a négociant (a wine merchant/broker) in the Medoc region of Bordeaux accepted the now-French wines, and over two years, bottled and labeled over one million wines as Bordeaux chateaux, including several prestigious sub regions.
The lesson to be learned from these nefarious operators? Lesson number one: Is your favorite wine truly a naturally produced wine? How do you know?
Lesson number two: Only buy from reputable producers, distributors and importers. They hold the trust of the public and are not about to break the tacit code of integrity and authenticity between consumers and producers.
Nick Antonaccio is a 45-year Pleasantville resident. For over 25 years, he has conducted wine tastings and lectures. Nick is a member and program director of the Wine Media Guild of wine journalists. He also offers personalized wine tastings and wine travel services. Nick’s credo: continuous experimenting results in instinctive behavior. You can reach him at nantonaccio@theexaminernews.com or on Twitter @sharingwine.
