ONE OF THE MOST BELOVED ITALIAN WINES IN THE WORLD, CHIANTI, IS THE BIGGEST VICTIM OF FRAUDS. THE CONSORTIUM HAS BLOCKED 56.000 VIOLATIONS ON THE WEB, INCLUDING WINE KITS AND FAKE WINES, FOR A TURNOVER OF 200 MILLION EUROS

It is a global food fraud worth 200 million euros, with 2.000 online sellers selling counterfeit Chianti wine as authentic. A whopping 39 WineKits were found, which are really nothing more than a chemical powder preparation to make wine at home. The labels are inviting, bearing the words Made in Italy and Chianti, but there is nothing further from the original product protected by Community legislation. This is what the Chianti Wine Consortium “discovered” up until mid-January during its control activities that detected as many as 56.075 violations, thanks to the tools provided by Griffeshield, a company specializing in new information technologies to support medium and large international companies. Protection and safeguarding actions, writes the Consortium, were made possible thanks to careful web monitoring, using specific technical procedures that detected all the improper uses of the Chianti brand, removing as much as 78% of them. In detail, the violations were the use of the Chianti brand, selling counterfeit Chianti wines and counterfeit Chianti labels.

The United Kingdom is the main European wine kit market selling through online stores such as Creative Wine Making Brew and portals such as EBay and Amazon. The United States holds the world record for online wine shops that offer a wide selection of wines such as Italian Chianti style, Original Chianti, Vintners Reserve Chianti and World Vineyard Italian Chianti, just to name a few. Even online e-commerce portals as well as large-scale retail stores like Walmart sell a big selection of wine kits. Russia, China, Canada and Australia follow.
“It is a great result”, said the president of the Chianti Wine Consortium, Giovanni Busi, “and has allowed us to eliminate the overwhelming majority of violations and frauds that damage the Chianti brand in the world. The damage is huge, which we are now remedying and as a matter of fact, the violations are already falling sharply. These actions are intended to increase pressure and therefore the risk of lawsuits, educating the online sales network to respect the Chianti brand and above all, the rights of the producers of authentic Chianti wine. To prevent this type of fraud, we have decided to change our specifications and allow Chianti to be bottled only in Tuscany. This is a first step to ensure more and better controls and safeguard our name”.