Champagne Fraud: Over $2 Million in ‘Fake Champagne’ Confiscated Over Counterfeit Manufacturing
In Colombé-la-Fosse, France, hundreds of thousands of bottles of fake Champagne have been confiscated by authorities. Photo: Getty Images Europe
A generations-old Champagne producer has been fined and stripped of nearly 300,00 bottles after a consumer fraud agency found that they mixed certified grapes with unqualified varieties.
The drama unfolded at Colombé-la-Fosse, a small municipality of just over 200 people on the southern edge of the Champagne region.
Inspectors arrived at the vineyards of Frédéric Gallois, 55, whose family has been producing Champagne in the region for generations.
They discovered that Gallois’ grapes were being harvested outside of official dates. The realization led them to conduct tests on Gallois’ Champagne reserves, revealing that his product was being produced using both approved appellation of origin (AOC) grapes and uncertified varieties.
“The non-AOC product corrupted the AOC product, which thus cannot be sold and becomes entirely an object of deception,” inspectors said.
Around 100,000 bottles were eventually found hidden within Gallois’ estate. Though inspectors only fined Gallois €12,000, they ended up confiscating nearly 300,000 bottles of champagne valued to the tune of €2 million.
Appellation of origin laws have always been about the finer details. Just as tequila can only be made in certain regions of Mexico exclusively using blue weber agave, Champagne must be made with pre-approved grapes varieties in one of a handful of sub-regions within the province of Champagne.
It’s a tightly-regulated €6 billion industry, and one that is particularly susceptible to fraud.
Industry inspectors say that routine inspections of Champagne-related businesses in 2020 and 2021 found that 15% were in violation of established guidelines.
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