When wine meets crime

Wine is not really on the radar of the average crook as it's fairly bulky and most 'fences' are not experts on the vintages. The big crime story in the trade over the last few weeks has been that Michael Broadbent - our greatest living authority on older 'fine wines' – has had his bicycle stolen.

The criminal element in wine these days is usually much more sophisticated than that.

At production level, there have always been scandals involving the mixing of cheap grapes with more expensive wine. In the 1970s, the Cruze family was nearly destroyed and had to sell Chateau Margaux following allegations that their Negociante Company had blended Algerian wine with hallowed Bordeaux classified growth.

More recently though, tankers have been seen at the dead of night driving from the south of France, where Chardonnay grapes cost €0.5 per kilogram, up to Champagne where the same grapes sell for €6 per kilogram – a decent margin by anyone's standards.

The growing skill of forgers has led to an increase in fake bottled wine at the very top of the market: Chateau Lafite (the wine in Eastern markets) and Chateau Petrus have been particularly targeted. Moves are afoot to microchip these very expensive wines so that their authenticity can be proved.

Diligent buyers, however, would never purchase really fine wine without first being absolutely sure of its provenance and storage. Indeed, fine wines that have been well stored in cellars such as Octavian (an old silver mine in Gloucestershire) fetch a premium price not only because the storage conditions are just about perfect but also because they can't have been tampered with and are undoubtedly the real thing.

The top chateaux will now examine older vintages and confirm their authenticity for customers for a modest fee – quite an important service when you consider that a case of Cheval Blanc 1947, for instance, is worth in the region of £75,000 and may have changed hands a dozen times.

A few years ago, a lorry was hijacked on a motorway in France. The hijackers were expecting to find 1000 cases of whiskey. Instead, the lorry contained 1000 cases of top class wine. They left, empty-handed, in disgust. It just goes to show, there's no accounting for taste. ·