Humagne Rouge 2005, Bonvin
28th June 2009
One day I might write a book about wine fraud. It is almost as fascinating a subject as wine itself, and it has been going on for a very long time indeed.
In the first century AD the Roman satirist Petronius described a banquet given by a man called Trimalchio. The occasion was lavish, for Trimalchio was very rich. But being a former slave, he was also rather ignorant. At the climax of the evening Trimalchio proudly served his guests a wine labelled “Falernian Opimian, One Hundred Years Old.” Falernum, in what is now southern Lazio, produced the greatest wine of ancient Italy. The Falernian made during the consulship of Opimius was prized highest of all. But there was a small snag. Opimius’s consulship did not fall one hundred years before Trimalchio’s banquet but one hundred and eighty years. Poor Trimalchio had been duped.
Twenty centuries later, the most prized Italian wine is no longer Falernian but a Tuscan red called Sassicaia. A recent bottle will cost you around $200, or £120. Only a few years ago the Italian police seized 20,000 bottles of counterfeit Sassicaia – a lot, when you consider than only 150,000 bottles of the real thing are made each year. We can only speculate as to how many fake Sassicaias have not been seized, and how many latter-day Trimalchios are savouring them as I write.
Of course, wine fraud can consist of much more than mislabelling. In the 1980s the Austrian wine industry was almost wiped out after it was discovered that producers had been sweetening their wines with anti-freeze. As I noted in an earlier post, the scandal forced the industry to improve its winemaking, and so was ultimately beneficial for everyone – except those killed by the anti-freeze, of course.
Another favourite trick is the bogus award. European wine labels used to be covered in medallions assuring us that the wine in question had won the silver at the 1876 Barcelona Exhibition or the 1932 Grenoble Expo, or some similar event. Many of these awards were genuine, if not especially significant, but some were completely made up. I suppose it was easier to get away with such deception before the age of instant electronic fact-checking; winemakers must now be more careful about the claims they make.
Yet fake awards have not disappeared entirely. As I reported last year, the Wine Spectator magazine (a publication that preys ruthlessly upon modern Trimalchios) was caught out in such a scam, claiming to bestow “awards of excellence” on restaurants with prestigious wine lists. In fact the awards are worthless certificates given to anybody willing to pay the Wine Spectator $250. The fraud was exposed by a blogger who obtained one of these “awards” on behalf of a restaurant that did not exist. Not only that, but his wine list included labels the Wine Spectator itself had panned. It was a shameful episode, but it seems to have changed nothing. Only the other day I noticed an advertisement for a New York restaurant boasting of its “award-winning” wine list. You can guess which award they were referring to.
There is also a form of malpractice that is not strictly fraud, but comes more into the category of creative marketing. After World War Two the makers of Beaujolais found it increasingly difficult to sell their deeply unimpressive product. Their solution was the Beaujolais Nouveau strategy, by which they persuaded consumers that it was chic to drink Beaujolais as early as possible (preferably chilled, to avoid dwelling upon the flavour) and that everyone should vie to be the first to get hold of it. “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est Arrivé” was the marketing slogan, and over the years large numbers of Anglo-Saxon Trimalchios have been happily taken in by it. Interestingly, the French have proved less gullible.
Something similar occurred with this week’s wine. Humagne Blanche is one of Switzerland’s nobler grape varietals, which makes for well-regarded white wines. Humagne Rouge has no connection with it. Indeed, there is really no such thing as Humagne Rouge. Apparently some winemaker in the Valais was having difficulty interesting anyone in his reds, so he renamed the somewhat rustic grape from which they were made “Humagne Rouge” in the hope that this would gain more attention. The trick worked. Humagne Rouge has become an established Swiss wine, with most drinkers assuming that the two Humagnes are somehow akin.
Oddly enough, this particular example of Humagne Rouge (by the aptly named firm of Bonvin) isn’t at all bad. I would never write a post about a Beaujolais Nouveau, much less recommend one, but if you ever come across a bottle of Humagne Rouge I suggest you give it a try. It is a sinewy, aggresively tannic wine with a spicy nose and flavours of earth and coffee. Apparently it is the ideal accompaniment to venison; it certainly went well enough with a very rare steak, though it needed a couple of hours’ airing first. An unusual wine, and well worth $18 or £10 of your money, or mine, or Trimalchio’s.
