Cafés and bistros in Paris are cheating customers by replacing quality wine with lower-cost alternatives when they serve by the glass, and tourists in particular are on the losing end of the swaps.
Few customers notice the difference when a premium chablis ordered from the wine menu and selling at about €9 a glass is swapped for a sauvignon costing about €5, an investigation by Le Parisien newspaper has found.
Two sommeliers detected switched wines, however, when they visited a series of bistros and brasseries while posing as English-speaking tourists for the newspaper. Waiters at restaurants and bars told the newspaper that the practice was widespread, especially in districts serving lots of tourists.
“You can serve the wine you want. People don’t have the sense of taste to spot it. It can be beaujolais, Côte du Rhône, Brouilly or any other wine,” a waitress called Sarah, with 30 years of experience in restaurants, said. “A sommelier knows the difference but the tourist has no idea. I sometimes even empty leftover wine into one bottle for the happy hour.”
Experts told Le Parisien that customers should insist on having the wine poured from the bottle in front of them
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A waiter called Tristan said he had had orders to serve a cheaper wine to avoid opening a more expensive bottle, which might spoil if left open. “The boss would tell us off if the most expensive bottle was going down too quickly,” he said. “Only once did a customer discover the trick. He was a sommelier.”
Marina Giuberti, a master wine merchant with a Paris shop, immediately spotted that a supposed sancerre at €7.50 a glass had been replaced by an inferior sauvignon priced at €5.60 that was also on the menu. When she complained, the waiter took her another glass of the wrong wine.
“It’s a pity for the customer and for the image of the wine appellation, for the winemaker and for the restaurant owners who do a good job,” Giuberti said. “We’re in France, the home of wine. We have to give tips to the consumer.”
For a start, customers should always insist on having the wine poured from the bottle in front of them with the label visible, as is required by law, experts told Le Parisien.
Jérôme Bauer, an Alsace winemaker who leads the National Confederation of AOC (appellation contrôlée) wine producers, said that fraudsters were a “very small fringe” but damaged the industry. “Cheating the customer rebounds on us, the producers, because a customer who has ordered a Côte du Rhône and gets served a Bordeaux wine will probably be disappointed and can turn away from that wine in the future,” he told Le Parisien.
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The French authorities have been fighting wine fraud for centuries and inspectors are supposed to check serving practices. Their resources are stretched, however, as there are 60,000 restaurants, cafés, bars and other hospitality establishments in Paris alone. The maximum penalties for cheating customers over wine are three years prison and €30,000 fine. The Paris region Union of Hospitality Professions, the industry body, did not comment.