Wine Fraud - Wine Blending

Wine Blending

Some practices of manipulation and adulteration have gone through stages of being considered fraudulent and later accepted as common practice. One of these is the practice of blending other grape varieties in order to add a characteristic that is lacking in the original wine. This most often occurred in the case of a wine lacking color. A wine with a deep dark color is often associated with being of a higher quality, so blending a darker color variety (or a teinturier) into a lighter wine could enhance the marketability of the wine. Today the practice of blending grape varieties together is commonly accepted (such as blending Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot), except where such blending is against the regulation of a particular appellation (such as the controversy over the Brunellopoli scandal in Brunello di Montalcino).

The gray area comes when inferior wine is being blended in with more expensive, higher quality wine in order to increase the total quantity of wine available to be sold at higher prices. This is a process known as "stretching" or "cutting in" the wine. During the 18th century, Bordeaux wine producers would often import wine from Spain, Rhone or the Languedoc to blend and stretch out their wine which they sold to the English as claret. While this practice would be frowned upon today by Bordeaux authorities, the French wine writer André Jullien noted that some merchants believed this practice was necessary in order for the claret to be agreeable with English tastes—a practice he describes as "travail à l'anglaise".