Constellation still selling wine from convicted supplier

The pinot noir the Constellation group received last year was the 2008 vintage

PARIS — Constellation Brands, the world's top wine group, said Friday it was still selling wine bought from a French supplier convicted this week of sending fake pinot noir to the United States.

The US group said it had bought 10 percent of the 18 million bottles of fake pinot noir that the Sieur d'Arques company shipped to Constellation, E&J Gallo and other US clients between 2006 and 2008.

Sieur d'Arques was fined 180,000 euros (240,000 dollars) Wednesday by a French court that handed out fines and suspended jail terms to 12 makers and dealers for passing off red wine from cheaper syrah and merlot grapes as pinot red.

Cheryl Gossin, a US-based spokeswoman for Constellation, said that after the allegations of fraud emerged against Sieur d'Arques it took action to ensure the wine it received after the years covered by the court ruling was authentic.

"Constellation had independent experts test the French pinot noir shipped in 2009. It was confirmed to be pinot noir," Gossin wrote in an email to AFP. The pinot noir the group received last year was the 2008 vintage.

She wrote that, despite the French court's conclusion that Sieur d'Arques shipped phoney pinot between 2006 and 2008, the wine Constellation received in those years was "tested internally and found to be pinot noir."

That wine has already been sold and is no longer available in the marketplace, she added.

Gallo, a major US wine producer, said after the court verdict that it had bought less than 20 percent of the falsely labelled pinot noir and was no longer selling any to customers.

Pinot noir became popular among American wine drinkers after the 2004 film "Sideways" about two friends who go on a wine-tasting trip in California.

The US federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said its agents were not involved in the affair because there was as yet no evidence that a fraud had been carried out on US soil.

But a spokeswoman said the ATF would investigate Constellation and Gallo if it were suspected that they were aware of the scam by the French suppliers and then knowingly sold cheaper wine as pinot to US consumers.

Those convicted by the court in the southwestern French town of Carcassonne included executives from wine estates, cooperatives, a broker, wine merchant Ducasse and the Sieur d'Arques group.

The judge said the accused made seven million euros (9.8 million dollars) in profits from the scam, with Ducasse raking in 3.7 million euros and Sieur d'Arques 1.3 million euros.