by Michèle Shah
Italy’s Corpo Forestale dello Stato, the state forestry department, together with Ispettorato Centrale per la Qualità dei prodotti Agroalimentari, the food and beverage anti-fraud squad, intercepted a wine scam
involving seven companies based in the provinces of Padova, Vicenza, Verona, Pordenone, Alessandria, Ravenna and Firenze, and confiscated a total of 24,000 hectolitres of counterfeit IGT Prosecco and Pinot Grigio.
This was discovered through a ‘quality control’ operation carried out by the food and beverage anti fraud squad on 11 July 2007. "It is a major achievement,” commented Giancarlo Vettorello, director of the Consorzio Tutela del Prosecco DOC di Conegliano and Valdobbiadene. "Although it did not involve our DOC production, which is the core and authentic Production of Prosecco, it shows that our quality control system works well and protects the final consumer from counterfeit production.” Vettorello went on the comment that often counterfeit production is made to order by unscrupulous importers and is sold outside Italy to import markets, at prices far below the final selling price.
A similar operation was carried out in April 2006 in the province of Vicenza and Verona uncovering a scam involving IGT table wines, which had been ‘transformed’ into Pinot Grigio, Prosecco and Pinot Noir worth about 1.5 million euros.
It is estimated that the export value of Pinot Grigio reached 5% market share in the United States in 2006, with 28% volume growth and 27% value growth. Source: Gomberg Fredricksen
