Hard to tell from the article if actual cantina labels were faked or if the wines were generic examples but Brunello, Sagrantio and Chianti DOCGs are involved:
http://news.yahoo.com/italian-police-seize-falsely-labeled-wine-bottles-175228739--finance.html
Usually your links go to the website and that’s it, end of story, but on tonight’s ABC News they actually highlighted this. I was so surprised major media would pick up a story about wine. Kudos!
Would you tell if they were actually counterfeit (fakes of real wines from real cantine) or just fakes (generic “Brunello”, “Sagrantino” etc)?
Very difficult to tell. The picture in your link seemed to be taken from the video they showed of the Carabinieri raiding the place. I didn’t recognize any of the wines from labels.
I was just about to post this from tonight’s ABC News. A reminder that wine counterfeiting exists at levels well below those at which people like Rudy K. were playing…
Bruce
If these were more generic (typically co-op bottlings) of famous DOCGs, the target was most likely the restaurant trade in Italy and perhaps Germany. MANY operators want to have the famous zonas on their lists but HATE paying what they command…