A dozen French wine producers and traders have been found guilty of supplying an American trader with mislabelled "pinot noir" wines.
In a rare case pitting some local French producers from the southwest of the country against big US traders E. and J. Gallo, the president of the criminal court said today that "there has been fraud".
In 2008, French customs found that during three years some 13.5 million litres of mislabelled wine had been sold to Gallo.
The producers and traders were accused of deliberately mislabelling the wine with a more expensive variety of grape.
The ordinary wines from the region sell at some €45 per 100 litres against €97 for Pinot Noir - well known abroad for its use in Burgundy wines and prized by American drinkers who favour single-grape wines over blended wines like Bordeaux.
Claude Courset of the Ducasse wine traders was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison sentence and has to pay a fine of €45,000. The prosecutor asked for a firm prison sentence.
Five other people were sentenced to fines of between €3,000 and 6,000 and the remaining six for less than that. The Sieur d'Arques trading firm of Limoux was ordered to pay €180,000 in penalties.
Courset was not present at the court case.
"The sentence was below what was asked by the prosecutor, that is re-assuring," said his lawyer Pierre Dunac, adding he was likely to appeal.
E. and J. Gallo, the largest family-owned US winery, had bought the wine for its Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir line.
According to Gallo's winemaking notes, the 2007 Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir was sourced from several areas within the Languedoc Roussillon region in Southern France.
The notes describe the wine as showcasing "dark fruit aromas and flavors of black cherry and ripe plum".
"When more information becomes available to us from the authorities," Gallo's Susan Hensley wrote last week, "we will move quickly to ensure that the trust people place in our company and our wines is not put at risk."
Reuters