Those Spanish wines that are made to look French and fool the consumer with their lavender fields etc as described in the article... Winemakers are blaming the Spanish, but there's also the French grocery stores to blame: why put the French and Spanish wines on the same shelf? Are they trying to confuse consumers because the margins on Spanish wines are much higher ?
Here in the US, nearly all wine stores I've been to sorts wine per type (red, white, etc) for local wines and have a specific foreign section "France", "Australia", etc. Even regular grocery stores tend to do this too.
If groceries chains did this in France, consumers would then rarely buy the Spanish wines unintentionally.
I don't think the winemakers would have a hard time lobbying for at least forcing grocery stores to display foreign wines in a clearly labeled section.
> why put the French and Spanish wines on the same shelf
Are you sure they actually do that? I've been to a few supermarkets in France and wine was predominantly organised by French region. I can't imagine they'd slip these bottles in to one of those sections.
EDIT: Found photos of sections like "wine between 3 and 4 EUR". Either times have changed or I hadn't seen a representative sample when I visited :)
Also, I don't find a perfectly legible "Vin de la Communeauté Européenne" label particularly deceptive. It's also a 1L bottle - hardly the sign of a good wine.
You're right that the stores probably play a role here. However in a typical supermarket bottle are not separated by origin: it would made little sense as most the wine comes from the country anyway.
Conning customers with fake logos (for organic food for example) and misleading packaging is a very common thing. The law forbid to use some regional names[1] but creating some fake "Château Mytho" brand with the origin of the product writing in yellow 4pt font size is still totally legal.
Some of this stuff is even legally organized. For example the "organic food" label of the European Union allows up to 5% non-organic in the product. The domestic label was then changed to match the European one, now allowing some "accidental" GMO.
> However in a typical supermarket bottle are not separated by origin: it would made little sense as most the wine comes from the country anyway.
Do mean not separated by origin country? I thought they're mostly separated by French/area region, though? You couldn't slip one of the Spanish wines in to those sections.
Though I just googled photos of carrefour and found a photo of sections like "vin entre 3 EUR et 4 EUR". That kind of layout could easily intermingle non-French wine
Here in the US, nearly all wine stores I've been to sorts wine per type (red, white, etc) for local wines and have a specific foreign section "France", "Australia", etc. Even regular grocery stores tend to do this too.
If groceries chains did this in France, consumers would then rarely buy the Spanish wines unintentionally.
I don't think the winemakers would have a hard time lobbying for at least forcing grocery stores to display foreign wines in a clearly labeled section.