SCANDAL IN BURGUNDY: 4 FAMOUS WINE MERCHANTS INVESTIGATED FOR FRAUD. 500.000 BOTTLES SOLD AS BURGUNDY HAD OTHER WINES ADDED AND ANOTHER MILLION ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND HAD WRONG LABELS

We often talk about counterfeiting, labeling, and measures to protect quality of wine and other products that leave Europe to conquer the world. But from neighboring France comes news (several international agencies have already divulged the news) that you just do not expect: four of the most famous Burgundy wine merchants have been officially indicted by the "gendarmerie" of Dijon that, after 18 months of investigations, has uncovered a fraud of alarming proportions.

Between 2005 and 2009, according to investigators, 500.000 bottles, marketed as Burgundy, were in fact diluted with wines of less valuable appellations and another million one hundred thousand bottles had wrong labels. We do not yet know the charges and penalties in which the scammers will likely incur, but their lawyer has assured full cooperation: a first admission of responsibility and a hard blow to the French wine world.