The Guardia Civil, under the direction of the Superior Public Prosecutor’s Office of La Rioja and in collaboration with the Agri-Food Quality Control Service of the La Rioja Department of Agriculture, has detected a food fraud involving more than 18,400 bottles of wine marketed as Vino de Manilva.
Three people are being investigated as those responsible for an economic fraud of more than 227,000 euros. They used a commercial network that sold low-quality wine from La Rioja as superior-quality wine from an area with a recognised Protected Designation of Origin in Málaga, specifically Málaga, Sierra de Málaga and Pasas de Málaga.
A complaint from a representative of those designations prompted the investigation by the Guardia Civil’s Seprona. It highlighted the unauthorised sale of certain bottles of white wine on which the term ‘Manilva’ appeared clearly and prominently, although it is protected and reserved solely for those registered with its regulatory council.
Thanks to investigations carried out on more than a thousand labels, back labels and neck strips from the wine bottles, it was established that the fraudulent wines had been bottled at bottling plants based in La Rioja and that most had been sold through online platforms specialising in wine.
Analysis of bottles bought on one of these websites by the Agri-Food Quality Control Service of the La Rioja Department of Agriculture determined that the wine had not been made with one hundred per cent Muscat of Alexandria grapes, as is the case with the companies belonging to the Málaga wine designations of origin, the percentage being residual. It was likewise found that it had instead been made with grapes from the La Rioja designation of origin.
The Guardia Civil’s Seprona investigators identified the modus operandi used. Through a person who acted as a sales representative, they sold the wine using terms protected by the designation of origin itself, such as Certified Designation of Origin ‘DOC Vinos de Fincas’, without being registered with the National Accreditation Entity (ENAC) or having authorisation from the designation in question. In this way they led consumers to believe that the wine they were buying was a Málaga wine with the corresponding designation, when it was in fact from La Rioja.
In this operation, named ‘Utrem’, three people have been investigated, accused of offences against industrial property, document forgery, offences relating to the market and consumers, and fraud.
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