Counterfeit wine bottles. CBS NEWS
Nic Cavell, New Republic: How China Conquered France’s Wine Country
French connoisseurs sold the Chinese pomp and prestige, until they started manufacturing it themselves.
In 1996, Chinese premier Li Peng surprised his audience at the National People’s Congress by toasting the Ninth Five-Year Plan with red wine: “Drinking fruit wines is helpful to our health, does not waste grain, and is good for social ethics,” he announced. For China’s rapidly growing underclass, this gesture signaled a commitment to rein in the fraud and waste epitomized by party banquets, where officials were known to drink each other under the table with bottles of Moutai Flying Fairy and other spirits derived from grain. For the elites in question, it was an unmistakable signal that business as usual required a new currency. Within a few years, they were using bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild to gain favor and ease transactions.
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Editor: The Chinese are not the only ones who are having problems with counterfeit wines .... Counterfeit wine: A vintage crime (CBS)
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