Record fines and severe sentences for Bordeaux wine fraudsters

by Valeria Tenison

The Bordeaux Tribunal has finally handed down its decision on an unprecedented fraudulent scheme which saw 34,587 hl of Spanish bulk wine bottled under labels of prestigious Bordeaux appellations, including Margaux, Saint-Julien, and Montagne-Saint-Emilion.

Five members of the criminal network were condemned to severe sentences on January 26, 2023, including two years’ imprisonment (one suspended and one under electronic monitoring) for Jean-Sébastien Laflèche, a Bordeaux négociant and the principal intermediary in the forgery. In total, the Tribunal handed down more than €1.2 million of penalties, including moral damages and legal costs to the five civil parties (INAO, Confédération Paysanne, Fédération des Grands Vins de Bordeaux, Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux and Fédération des Négociants de Bordeaux et de Libourne).

The scheme
During the trial, which was reported by Vitisphere and France Bleu, prosecutor Nathalie Mathieu explained the fraud system as having two triangles. The first triangle, comprising broker, négociant, and carrier, faked documents to convert cheap Spanish bulk wine into French. Later on, a second triangle involved the same broker and merchant, as well as a cellar in Médoc, bottling the wine under prestigious Bordeaux appellations.

The business started in 2013 when a poor harvest in Bordeaux meant there low yields and issues with supply. As one of the convicts, Michel Gilin, confessed, “the mechanism was dictated by circumstances. It didn’t matter what the supply was, what was important was the turnover and the margin.” The scheme was profitable, and the fraud continued. Between 2014 and 2016, the group falsified more than 2 million bottles, generating €1.24 million in profits.

The verdict
It took the Tribunal six years to reach a final verdict in the case. The defendants’ lawyers tried to shift the blame to merchants who bought the wine and even consumers who did not care about the provenance as long as the wine was cheap. But the prosecutor Mathieu was uncompromising: “It is unworthy of wine professionals, especially with the reputation that everyone knows about Bordeaux wine, to proceed in this way. <…> it’s so simple that it makes a lot of money. To put money before conscience … is unintelligible for the public prosecutor”, she said.

Frédéric Georges, the representative of the Confédération Paysanne, added, “There is a problem of internal checks and balances that should be questioned by the wine industry in general. How can one so easily act by pretence and magically create French wine with Spanish wine, AOC wine from wine without geographical indication?”

“The fines are completely out of proportion, ” said Laflèche’s defence lawyer, continuing without fully explaining who she was referring to, “and unjust because it is always the small guys who are in front of the judge. The larger players are protected”.