Vino Business ─ The Cloudy World of French Wine

Published in France to huge media attention and great debate within the wine community worldwide,Vino Business exposes big money interests and corruption within the wine industry in France, particularly in Bordeaux.

For centuries a bastion of tradition and excellence, Bordeaux has in recent years become dogged by controversy, particularly regarding the 2012 classification of the wines of St.-Emilion, the most prestigious appellation of Bordeaux’s right bank. St.-Emilion is an area increasingly dominated by international investors, especially from China, who are keen to speculate on the area’s wines and land, some of whose value has increased tenfold in the last decade alone. In the controversial 2012 classification, as Saporta shows, certain chateaux were promoted to a more prestigious class because of alterations to the scoring system for the division of wines into premier crus and grand crus. This system now takes into account the facilities of each chateau’s tasting room, the size of its warehouse, and even the extent of its parking lot. The quality of the wine counts for just 30% of the total score for the wines of the top ranking, those deemed premier grand cru classe A.

In Vino Business, Saporta shows how backroom

Isabelle Saporta is an investigative journalist and documentary film-maker. In 2011, she publishedThe Black Book of Agriculture, which sold more than 60,000 copies in France alone.Vino Business is her first book to be translated into English. She lives in Paris, France.