Budget wine drinkers are not getting what they bargained for.
Counterfeit bottles of Yellow Tail, the ubiquitous Australian wine known for its affordable chardonnays and Pinot Grigio, many of which cost under $10 per bottle, are circulating in the U.K. One supermarket in England has even been busted for selling the fake booze.
KVK Supermarket, a grocery store in Birmingham, England, was caught selling 41 bottles of counterfeit Yellow Tail wine, Birmingham Live reported, after one consumer allegedly noticed the coloring was off in a bottle they purchased. The store may be stripped of its liquor license, police said in the report.
A consumer watchdog who purchased six bottles of Yellow Tail said the taste and color of the wine was off. After the complaint, Yellow Tail owner Casella Brands confirmed the wine was not authentic.
And the fake wine was also found in a neighboring town.
“There were some bottles found in [the nearby town of] Dudley, and there appear to be bottles found in different parts of the country — some were in the South and some were in the North,” Martin Williams of Birmingham City Council’s Trading Standards, told Birmingham Live.
Trading Standards, which regulates illegal sales activity, reportedly seized bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz and Pinot Gorgio on two separate occasions, all of which were deemed counterfeit.
It’s unclear if any fake bottles were found in the U.S. to date.
