CIVB and Chinese wine authorities collaborating to fight false wines

French and Chinese wine authorities are collaborating in an effort to fight counterfeit bottles and educate Chinese consumers and importers.
 
The CIVB – the Bordeaux wine trade body – has been making random visits to Chinese supermarkets and wine shops in order to compile a database of false bottles, which has been passed on to Chinese investigators.

The CIVB will not release figures on numbers of counterfeit bottles, nor will it indicate which brands are being faked, though images (pictured) obtained by Decanter.com show cases labelled ‘Forlatour’, and a Margaux ‘Grande Reserve’ called ‘Chateau French Tour’. Officials have indicated they consider these suspicious.

To that end, the CIVB is planning a series of wine education sessions across China in the next three months to help consumers understand labelling and appellation indications.

But the learning curve is high, Christophe Tran, a Shanghai-based representative for the French wine marketing organization Sopexa said.