Wine adulteration (colloquially known as panning or panting, also known as wine manipulation or wine adulteration) refers to improper manipulations in winemaking that deliberately violate wine law and are carried out with deceptive or fraudulent intent. The aim is to "improve" the flavour or quality of the wine with prohibited additives and thus falsely simulate a certain or better quality, to dilute the quantities of high-quality wines by mixing them with simple, cheaply produced bulk wine or simply with water, and to market wines under prestigious names or vintages by means of false labelling using genuine labels and/or bottles.
Introduction of wine laws
Throughout history, there have always been different and often changing views on what exactly constitutes wine adulteration. What is now considered to be slavishness may have been a widespread practice just a few decades ago. Even today, some techniques are country-specific and regulated differently, particularly in Europe and the New World. Three significant examples are the regulations regarding fortification, acidification and sweetening. The introduction of strict wine laws in many wine-growing countries at the end of the 19th century had a positive effect. They had already existed in some wine-growing regions before that. However, it was of course not possible to completely prevent tampering.
Falsification of origin
The 18th century is considered the "era of wine scandals". The enormous demand in England for Portuguese port wine led to shortages from 1730 onwards. For this reason, alcohol, elderberry juice, ginger, pepper, cinnamon and sugar were added to simpler wines in the Douro. The positive effect of this was that in 1756, the port wine region was declared one of the first areas of protected origin and strict laws were passed. In Bordeaux, it was common practice to blend wines for the English market with high-alcohol, simple wines from other regions (Rhône, Spain). When there was a great shortage of wine in France due to phylloxera and mildew , sultana wine was produced in large quantities from 1880 onwards. In the 19th century, there were mass counterfeits of Hungarian Tokay in many countries, for which there were even detailed recipes.
Birth of the designation of origin
The major breakthrough in the fight against counterfeiting began with the definition of controlled designations of origin. These originated in France with the appellation system from the beginning of the 20th century. However, wine counterfeiting continued with increasingly sophisticated and difficult to verify...
