Steeped in cynicism, Old World merchants craftily defrauded a family-owned New World business. Alerted by the odor of turpitude, investigators exposed the foul play and brought those responsible to justice.

This dramatic story happens to be true.

From 2008 to 2008, a group of cooperatives in the Languedoc-Roussillon region (in the south of France, the westernmost territory that faces the Mediterranean) sold wine to Ducasse, an intermediary working for Aimery Sieur d’Arques, a large French wine conglomerate. This French group then sold the wine to a family-owed business based in the United States, E&J Gallo Winery, which sold it under the Red Bicyclette label.

Gallo and its customers were enchanted with the “warmth and charm” of wine from the “sun-drenched” Languedoc-Roussillon. Indeed, the Languedoc-Roussillon region calls itself the “world’s biggest vineyard”.

The problem: the French producers claimed the wine was pinot noir. As investigators found, it was not; the wine was actually merlot or syrah (shiraz).

The fraud was perpetrated over 135,000 hectoliters of wine. That’s more than 3 1/2 million US gallons. Put differently, that’s enough wine to fill 18 million bottles.

That’s a lot of wine. Especially when the Languedoc-Roussillon region produces, in total, 50,000 hectoliters of pinot noir annually.

Carcassonne court

Money provided both a motivation and an important clue for investigators. The wine passed off as pinot noir sold for €58 per hectoliter. That’s more than the €45 local varietals command. But it’s significantly discounted from the lofty €97 price that genuine pinot noir commands.

The Carcassonne court imposed fines up to €180,000, and a six-month jail term (suspended) for a ringleader.