The Civil Guard has detected food fraud involving more than 18,400 bottles of low-quality wine bottled in La Rioja, made with grapes from this community and marketed under the Málaga Denomination of Origin as wine of superior quality. A scam that amounts to 227,000 euros.
The Superior Prosecutor’s Office of La Rioja and in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture of Rioja is now investigating three people as alleged perpetrators of crimes against industrial property, document falsification, related to the market and consumers, and fraud.
A representative of the Denomination of Origin of Málaga, Sierra de Málaga and Pasas de Málaga filed a complaint, in which he warned about the unauthorized sale of certain bottles of white wine in which the term “Manilva” appeared clearly and prominently. , which is protected and reserved only for those enrolled in its regulatory council.
From that notice, more than a thousand labels, back labels and strips from the wine bottles were evaluated, which made it possible to find out that the packaging of the fraudulent wines had been carried out in bottling companies based in La Rioja and that the majority They had been sold through online platforms specialized in wines.
The analysis of the bottles acquired on one of these websites by the Department of Agriculture of La Rioja determined that the wine had not been made with 100% Muscat of Alexandria grapes, as is done by companies adhering to the designations of origin of It came from Malaga, and its percentage was residual. Instead, it was found that it had been made with La Rioja grapes.
The operation, named Utrem, has confirmed that, through a person who acted as a salesperson, those investigated sold the wine using terms protected by the denomination of origin itself, such as Certified Denomination of Origin ‘DOC Vinos de Fincas’, without being registered in the National Accreditation and Certification Entity (ENAC), nor possess authorization of that name.
Thus, they made the consumer believe that the wine they purchased was from Malaga with its corresponding denomination, when, in reality, it was made with grapes from La Rioja. A scam that amounts to 227,000 euros.
