Pirate Wine

Filed in archive Wine Laws on June 7, 2007

I never really thought about this before but there actually are wine pirates out there. That's right. Just like there are pirates stealing music, there are pirates selling pinot noir, well sort of. From Bottle tech aims to foil wine pirates:

Regardless of how many phony pinots are out there, it seems clear that interest in preventing fraud has spiked as new technology has become available, said Daniel Welty, marketing manager for Petaluma-based John Henry Packaging, which prints labels for wineries as well as other clients.

Anti-fraud measures being explored include tamper-proof seals, radio-frequency identification chips sunk into corks and using inks that only show up under special lights.

The idea is to come up with something easy to use and hard to detect, meaning it's that much harder for counterfeiters to figure out and copy, said Steve Powell, general manager and director for Security Solutions, Kodak's Graphic Communications Group.

The codes can be microprinted, so they're visible only with magnification, or in type that can be easily read.

Fine wine can be expensive straight from the shelf, but when it comes to charity affairs, such as the Napa Valley annual wine auction going on this week, prices can go sky high.