Sly grogging

The Crater Rim Bendigo Terrace Central Otago Pinot Noir 2008. Photo / Natalie Slade

Sacre bleu! The wheels are looking decidedly wobbly on US wine giant Gallo's Red Bicyclette, following the revelation that the brand's pinot noir was not quite the wine it purported to be. Last month some of Gallo's French suppliers were found guilty of passing off cheaper varieties as pinot noir in the newest scandal to rock the wine world.

Heads rolled in the French courts when a dozen members of the Languedoc wine industry were handed out suspended prison sentences and fines for their part in selling Gallo 13.5 million litres of mislabelled pinot noir. Cut with cheaper merlot and syrah, Gallo went on to sell this in the US as the pinot noir in its Red Bicyclette wine range, which was riding the mass pinot mania generated by the film Sideways.

According to a report in the Times, the fraud came to light when the French trading squad audited one of the suppliers involved and noticed it was buying pinot noir for far lower than the market price, while the volume of pinot noir being sold to Gallo exceeded the amount the region actually made.

While the buck appears to have stopped in the Languedoc, questions are being asked as to why Gallo didn't notice the anomaly itself. The warm climes of the south of France many not be prime pinot noir territory, but surely they should have been able to spot an imposter? That they didn't doesn't say much for the varietal character of the range.

This certainly isn't the first case of wine fraud. High profile cases in recent years include Italy's Brunellopoli that followed allegations that some producers of the country's prestigious brunello di montalcino wines had added non-permitted varieties. Then there was beaujolais producer Georges Duboeuf, fined for incorrectly blending lesser wines with superior ones.

We've had a few of our own scandals too, although these have largely been controversies centred on wine competitions. Over a decade ago, the now-defunct Lintz Estate was stripped of the Air New Zealand Trophy for a wine that was discerned to be different from the one available. More recently Wither Hills entered a batch of sauvignon into various tastings that was not the bottling widely available, although it was later cleared of wrongdoing.

"We've got a very good track record here in New Zealand," states John Barker, policy manager at New Zealand Winegrowers. "Most of our mislabelling events pre-date the current wine standards management plan, which is a fully traceable system that keeps records all down the chain and is supported by an annual audit. Globally we're at the high end of product integrity."

Every bottled wine New Zealand sends out into the world is tasted by experts in order to gain export certification. Although they're there to detect faults, they should also sniff out claims about the variety, which must account for 85 per cent of our wines if it's to appear as a single variety on the label. However, imports are harder to police. The current lack of certification for bulk exports at their final destination could also potentially lead to Bicyclette accidents of our own, which is why New Zealand Winegrowers are currently in talks with the Government to tighten things up.

Back on the Bicyclette, it was reported that the suppliers' defence argued that pinot noir could be "considered to be a brand, expressing a taste and given qualities and not a particular variety", a spurious stance that completely undermines the concept of the varietal labelling consumers have come to trust.

"Not a single American consumer complained", one of their lawyers later remonstrated. A class action suit has since been brought against Gallo and its suppliers on behalf of all California's consumers, however, asserting that people spending under $12 on a mass market brand didn't click it wasn't the real deal is really no excuse.

Bona fide buys

Sunrise wine

Tolaga Bay Unoaked Chardonnay 2009 $14.95

A fresh and fruity chardonnay with ripe, bright peachy fruit and a lick of lemon from an estate northeast of Gisborne that sees some of world's first sun each day.
(From selected Pak n Save and New World supermarkets.)

Spicy syrah

Vidal Hawkes Bay Syrah 2007 $25.99

Another star syrah from Vidal with a palate of soft juicy plum fruit infused with black pepper and spice.
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The Crater Rim Bendigo Terrace Central Otago Pinot Noir 2008 $33

There's a fabulous fusion of earth, mineral and spice layered over tangy black cherry fruit in this single-vineyard Bendigo wine from Waipara-based Crater Rim.
(From Wine Vault, Point Wines, Bacchus, Fine Wine Delivery Company.)