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Latest update: 22/08/2011
- China - counterfeit goods - France - wine
French wines fall victim to Chinese counterfeiting
After designer handbags, perfumes and tablet computers, the latest global success story to fall victim to Chinese counterfeiting is French wine. The process is easy, a vender tells FRANCE 24, and most customers don’t seem able to tell the difference.
By Sophie PILGRIM (text)
Copycat kings of the world, the Chinese counterfeit industry has added a new item to its production line: vintage French wine. Impossible to tell a genuine bottle from a fake one, many unsuspecting customers will remain none the wiser until their first sip. And even then, only a connoisseur could taste the difference.
“A bottle of wine is very easy to replicate,” Sheng Wen*, a wine seller from Shanghai, told FRANCE 24. “The counterfeiters search for original bottles in restaurant trash. Once they’ve got hold of one, they reproduce the label and replicate the bottle. They then buy mid-range bottles of wine from the supermarket, pour them into the fake bottles, and sell them.”
Wine is relatively new to China, in both its genuine and phony forms. Preferring to stick to Baidu, the gutsy spirit that has been washing down their dinners for centuries, the Chinese viewed wine, until recently, as a Westerners’ drink.
But after growing acclaim, and – strangely enough – a government campaign promoting its health benefits, wine has become a must-have at swanky dinner parties. For the newly wealthy, it is one of the many luxuries that symbolises their admission to the global elite and emergence from the privations of decades of strict communist rule.
“Wine is seen as a rich person’s drink,” says Sheng. “And that means everyone wants to be seen drinking it.”
A new penchant for Bordeaux made China and Hong Kong the world’s biggest Bordeaux importers in 2010. Some 33.5 billion bottles made their way into the country, and straight into the dragon’s den of counterfeit expertise. Like any valuable product, it didn’t take long for the fakes to start lining the shelves.
More money than sense?
One of the major victims of Chinese counterfeiting is the Chateau Lafite Rothschild ’82, a Bordeaux that has gained more popularity in China than in its home country. Described as “the reference” Bordeaux by Zhongguo Wine, a blog on the Chinese wine market run by two French expats, the price for a bottle shot up by 574% between 2001 and 2010 after sales in China went through the roof.
Today, a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild from 1982 can fetch up to 5,400 euros. That means around 5,000 euros of profit per bottle for a resourceful counterfeiter -- and there are plenty of those in China. Lucas Botebol, one of the Zhongguo bloggers, estimates that some 70% of the Chateau Lafite sold in the country must be fake due to the fact that the sales numbers vastly outstrip the import figures. “There is more Lafite '82 in China than was produced in France,” Romain Vandevoorde, head of wine importer Le Baron, told AFP. “So you really have to be wary if you find any of that in China.”
For a European wine merchant who deals in sales to Hong Kong, the figures are not surprising. “I don’t think the Chinese have a clue what they’re drinking,” he told FRANCE 24, on condition of anonymity. “They wouldn’t realise if they weren’t drinking a Lafite because they don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like.”
The Shanghai vender agreed. “A lot of Chinese people honestly wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a top French wine and something from the supermarket,” he said.
‘Drinking a label’
Wine vender Yang Yi, who owns a wine boutique in the prosperous eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, sympathised with deceived customers. “These people have no idea,” he told FRANCE 24. But Yang described his own customers as “connoisseurs” who would recognise a counterfeit wine from the first sip.
The European merchant we spoke to was not convinced. “The Chinese don’t really like wine. They drink it because it’s the in-thing,” he said. “What sells in China is brands, not tastes; they’re drinking a label.”
Already overwhelmed by phony laptops, designer handbags and cartons of cigarettes, will the counterfeit police now begin the search for fake winemakers?
“It’s not going to be easy for the police,” says Yang. “You can only tell a wine is fake by what’s inside the bottle. How can they be expected to know what certain French wines taste like?”
The only solution for customers, Yang says, is to buy from a reputable dealer who keeps a close watch on his stock. Is he surprised that there is so much fake wine on the market? “Ha!” he laughs. “The Chinese counterfeit everything. Why do computers and not wine?”
FRANCE 24 contacted Chateau Lafite for comment but has not received a response.
* Name has been changed.
Follow Sophie Pilgrim on Twitter: @sophiepilgrim.
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(8) Reactions
Correction, the Chinese
Correction, the Chinese alcohol is 'baijiu',not Baidu. Baidu is the search engine similar to Google.
Chateau Lafite Rothschild
I agree moreof this above mentionned wine is sold in China that it is produced in France, By experience having diner we had 12 bottles of this wine and the guy proclaims that he has the franchise having registered the name and only him can sale it.
He became rich but rich thank to his selling may be "fake' Chateau Lafite Rothschild. Good luck to the buyers ????????????????????
China is dumb? I don't thing so.
Chinese culture is over 5,000 years old. They were civilized when the french were eating roots and neanderthals were roaming around france. The french think they are better but its now a sad depressed country with all the problems of a multi culture where everyone's the same. China will make france look like a third world country very soon. He who laughs last...
wine
everybody knew about the chinese fake, but no one is doing anything about it. I was in shanghai 4 years ago and i was able to found market for fake. The governement kwew about it but did nt want to do anything cause was a loss for them. They copied cars. perfume, bag and they always have an excuses. Pls give me a break we know what they are doing and some companies are putting money in their poket
BORDEAUX
As long as they are selling the fake wine to their fellow nouveau riche Chinese who are not sophisticated enough to tell the difference anyway, what is wrong with that? If they are exporting Chateau La Tour back to France then that's a diffenet story.
French wine
There is an easy way that French wine producers can stop counterfeiters copying their wine; make better wine that can't be copied!
Hennessy Cognac
Hi Very interesting article. Here in Thailand its copy cat Cognac.
3 times now I have had friends come to visit and bought me a bottle of HENNESSEY COGNAC at Bangkok airport. COPY for sure, filled with cheap local Brandy. Hennessey France were not really interested, but acknowledged it as a fact. So now I shall be careful of Wine to
Bordeaux wine
Does Bordeaux produce 35 billion bottle a year?