The judge of the National Court José Luis Calama has summoned as investigated the CEO and president of the Board of Directors of the Félix Solís wineries, Félix Solís Yáñez, and the sole administrator of García Carrión, José García Carrión Jordán, to declare the days December 3 and 11 in the case related to the marketing, between 2017 and 2019, as aging, reserve and grand reserve of wines that supposedly did not meet the production requirements, neither in the aging period nor in the permanence in oak barrels nor in bottle. The case is being pursued for crimes of false advertising, fraud and document falsification.
The resolution agrees to take a witness statement, on November 23, to the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Development of the Board of Communities of Castilla-La Mancha from 2015 to 2019 and since then Minister of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development, Francisco Martínez Arroyo.
In his resolution, the magistrate explains that since the Prosecutor’s complaint was admitted for processing, in April 2021, a series of procedures have been carried out aimed at determining the nature of the events and the people who participated, including reports. police, documentation of the investigated companies and other entities and institutions.
According to the documentation analyzed, the order indicates, in the case of Félix Solís it is clear that those investigated “have carried out the marketing of red wines from the Valdepeñas Denomination of Origin with the mentions crianza, reserva and gran reserva, in amounts much higher than those declared to the Regulatory Council of the Valdepeñas Denomination of Origin, during the period corresponding to the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, introducing it into economic traffic.”
Said documentation, he adds, shows a lack of agreement between the data provided by the different organizations involved in production, control and certification, which calls into question the veracity of the information provided by those investigated, regardless of possible participation in the facts of the rest of the operators involved in this process.
Specifically, the aforementioned dysfunction appears from the analysis of data relating to wine stocks, declared outputs, declarations of suitability, and barrel stock. In this way, he points out, at the beginning of 2017 those investigated had a considerably larger quantity of wine than that declared to the Regulatory Council, amounting to the difference to 914,988 liters. In addition, they had 605,480 liters of reserve wine above what was communicated to the Regulatory Council.
On the other hand, the judge explains, there is a difference of 4,608,437 liters between the outputs declared to the Regulatory Council and the marketing to thirteen companies in the national territory. Specifically, the reserve wine presents a mismatch of 3,767,884 liters. Regarding the data provided at a court request, this difference reaches 15,621,492 liters.
On the other hand, the judge points out that, as with the previous group of investigated, the documentation presented, as well as obtained through the Regulatory Council, the Liec Agroalimentaria certifying entity and thirteen commercial buyers, “indiciatively shows that García Carrión SA and Grupo Vinartis SA and José García Carrión would also have marketed red wines from the Valdepeñas Denomination of Origin without complying with the production requirements, neither in the minimum aging period, nor in the permanence in oak barrels, nor in the bottle.
It points out that the comparison between the declaration of suitability data provided by these investigators and the quantity of wine marketed to thirteen companies in the national territory shows that, in relation to the wines with the Gran Reserva 2018 mention, more liters of the 2018 wines would have been marketed. declared as suitable, with a discrepancy of more than six million liters between the data on the declaration of suitability from the Regulatory Council and the liters marketed by the winery in the 2017/2019 period.
Regarding its productive capacity, the data show, the magistrate warns, an insufficient number of barrels for the necessary aging of the marketed wine, “which constitutes another important indication of the commission of the accused acts, regardless of the disparate data. provided by the regulatory council, certifying entity, and investigated.”
