A South Australian winemaker has been caught substituting sultana grapes for much more expensive chardonnay fruit, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the country.
The switch was uncovered after one of the wine company’s customers, a fellow winemaker, became suspicious when he tasted some of the grape juice and found it didn’t have the flavor characteristics expected of chardonnay.
The Australian Wine and Brandy Corp investigated the case and became even more suspicious when they audited Rivers Wines books, uncovering false records of grapes processed by the winery in 2003.
“It’s not good to have something like this happen, but I’ve been in this job for nine years ... and this is the first time we’ve had anything like this happen,” the corporation’s spokesman Steve Guy said.
In a judgment handed down last month, the South Australian Magistrates Court found that Rivers Wines made 34 entries in its books in which the firm falsely claimed it received almost 600 tonnes of chardonnay grapes.
The court said while the accusations were not the most serious of criminal offenses, the substitution of chardonnay grapes with sultana grapes could seriously affect the Australian wine industry.
Guy said the case had taken a painstaking investigation, but revealed the determination of the corporation, the country’s wine regulatory body, to protect the reputation of local wines.
He said that unlike a recent case in France in which 18 million bottles of wine presented as Pinot Noir but in fact made from far cheaper grape varieties had been sold, in this case the fraud was detected before the grape juice was made into wine.
“None of this actually landed in the marketplace and certainly none was exported,” he said.
The South Australian company and its former director face a maximum penalty on each count of falsifying records is A$15,000 (US$13,800) for a company and A$3,000 for an individual.
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday received government approval to deploy its advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process at its second fab currently under construction in Japan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a news release. The ministry green-lit the plan for the facility in Kumamoto, which is scheduled to start installing equipment and come online in 2028 with a monthly production capacity of 15,000 12-inch wafers, the ministry said. The Department of Investment Review in June 2024 authorized a US$5.26 billion investment for the facility, slated to manufacture 6- to 12nm chips, significantly less advanced than 3nm process. At a meeting with
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
RSS