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Adulteration and fraud have dogged the wine trade throughout its history. The variability and value of wine have traditionally made it a target for unscrupulous operators, as catalogued in the literature of wine. The long human chain stretching from grower to consumer affords many opportunities for illegal practices. It is important to remember, however, that at various times the law has viewed the same practices differently, sometimes condoning, sometimes condemning them. What we know as adulteration, our ancestors may have classed as a legitimate part of the wine-making process.
The simplest and most obvious form of adulterating wine is to add water. This is not necessarily fraudulent. In Ancient Greece, for example, no civilized man would dream of drinking undiluted wine, and even today wine made from extremely ripe grapes may achieve better balance if slightly diluted. The practice becomes illegal when done surreptitiously to cheat the consumer or defraud the taxman. Another means of stretching wine is to `cut', or blend, it with spirits or other (usually poorer-quality) wines. Bordeaux merchants in the 18th century cut fine clarets with rough, stronger wine imported from Spain, the Rhone, or the Midi to increase profits, but also because it was genuinely believed that the resulting fuller bodied concoction was more to the English taste. Jullien describes this common practice as travail a l'anglaise. Similarly merchants in 18th-century Oporto began to adulterate port with brandy. The systematization of this process by the Portuguese government eventually led to an accepted method of `adulteration', entirely lawful, to produce port as we know it today. Other ways of altering the nature of a wine were perfectly legal. In the past wines turned sour after a year or two and techniques used to cure or disguise `sick' wines were commonplace. Classical and medieval recipes suggested adding a range of substances ranging from milk (perhaps a precursor of fining with casein) and mustard to ashes, nettles, and lead. Although home doctoring was routine, when these techniques were employed by merchants or taverners deliberately to mislead the customer, the practice was as illegal as it was ubiquitous. In the first century ad Pliny the Elder bemoaned the fact that `not even our nobility ever enjoys wines that are genuine'. One particular method of altering the nature of wine remains controversial; the addition of sugar during fermentation to increase the eventual alcoholic strength, known as chaptalization after the French minister Chaptal, who gave it respectability at the beginning of the 19th century. Producers in wine regions warm enough to need no such assistance tend to be scornful of the practice (although they may well indulge in acidification to increase the acidity of their wines). It is assumed today that, unless explicitly stated otherwise, wine is the product of naturally fermented grape juice. However, the practice of fabricating wine, as opposed to simply doctoring it, has a long and chequered history, often most prolific and ingenious at times when true grape wine has been difficult to obtain. In 1709 Joseph Addison wrote in the Tatler of the `fraternity of chymical operators . . . who squeeze Bourdeaux out of a sloe and draw Champagne from an apple', apparently a profession of long standing. Although other fruits were often the basis of these concoctions, `wine' was sometimes completely manufactured from a mixture of water, sugar, dyes, and other chemicals, as has reputedly (and mysteriously in an era of wine surplus) been known in more recent times. Wines were also fabricated from raisins. In the 1880s and 1890s the scourge of phylloxera led to a serious shortage of wine in France. In response, a thriving industry manufacturing wine from imported raisins sprang up on the Mediterranean coast. During American Prohibition in the 1920s various methods were contrived to circumvent the law by producing wines at home from raisins, dried grape `bricks', and tinned grape concentrate (using techniques common to home wine-making today). One of the most common forms of fraud does not involve any doctoring or fabricating of the wine, but merely the label. Once a region made a name for its wines, others tried to steal it. In Roman times ordinary wines were passed off as valuable Falernian. From the 19th century vine-growers have fought for the legal apparatus to protect their names (see appellation controlee). The adulteration or fraudulent sale of wine can be dangerous. The consumer may even be put medically at risk, by the use of lead in ancient times and by methanol contamination in the 20th century. The use of lead in wine for many centuries is an obvious example. Pliny wrote: `So many poisons are employed to force wine to suit our taste-and we are surprised that it is not wholesome.' In 1833 the influential English wine writer Cyrus Redding recommended: `The best test against adulterated wine is a perfect acquaintance with that which is good.' Illegal practices frequently hurt the grower and merchant. Once the reputation of a wine has been jeopardized, economic hardship may result. The flagrant adulteration of port in the 18th century resulted in a rapid and dramatic fall in demand. The Portuguese government stepped in and formed a state company to control the trade. Consumers, growers, and merchants are not alone in trying to prevent adulteration and fraud. Local authorities and (in this century) governments have fought it. Regulations and legislation have been passed for many reasons: to protect the consumer; to preserve the good name of the local wine; or to facilitate taxation. In medieval London it was illegal for taverners to keep French or Spanish wines in the same cellar as those from Germany to prevent mixing or substitution. A vintner found selling corrupt wine was forced to drink it, then banned from the trade. German punishments of the time were more severe, ranging from beatings and branding to hanging. The legal apparatus existing to combat fraud and adulteration today is the culmination of many battles waged by both consumers and trade. In 1820 Frederick Accum published his Treatise stating that wine was the commodity most at risk. Thirteen years later Cyrus Redding reported no improvement and it was not until 1860 that the first British Food and Drug Act was passed. As for wine-producing countries, the economic distress caused by phylloxera was the main stimulus to legislation. The French government produced a legal definition of wine in 1889, the Germans framed the first German wine law in 1892 (superseded by the more thorough 1909 version), and the Italians in 1904. The French appellation controlee system, defining wines by geography rather than simply composition, did not become nationally viable until the 1930s. Although once rife, adulteration and fraud have been considerably rarer in the wine trade since the adoption of controlled appellation (see controlled appellations) systems and methods by which to enforce them such as France's Service de la Repression des Fraudes. There have been examples of contaminants in wine, both deliberate and accidental, but passing off has become increasingly difficult and, just possibly, less rewarding as wine consumers become ever more sophisticated and more concerned with inherent wine quality than the hierarchy of famous names. Consumers may with justification feel that the wine trade has attracted more than its fair share of charlatans because fraud in any field in which expertise is difficult to acquire and viewed with suspicion (such as wine and fine art) attracts more media attention than most other types of commercial fraud. Nevertheless, the Commission of the European Union (see European Union (EU)) was sufficiently concerned about potential fraud over its compulsory distillation scheme in 1993 that it specifically cited the need to police the system effectively as one of its four major proposals for reform. See also contaminants. Bibliography - Accum, F., Treatise on Adulteration of Food and Culinary Poisons (London, 1820).
- Barr, A., Wine Snobbery: An Insider's Guide to the Booze Business (London, 1988).
- Johnson, H., The Story of Wine (London and New York, 1989).
- Jullien, A., Topographie de tous les vignobles connus (Paris, 1816).
- Loubere, L. A., The Red and the White: A History of Wine in France and Italy in the Nineteenth Century (Albany, NY, 1978).
- Redding, C., The History and Description of Modern Wines (London, 1833).
References acidification acidity alcoholic strength appellation controlee balance Bordeaux casein chaptalization contaminants controlled appellations distillation European Union (EU) Falernian fining grape concentrate Greece home wine-making label lead literature of wine methanol Oporto phylloxera Pliny port Prohibition taxation
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