As a consumer, there are few things worse than getting ripped off. You have worked hard to earn your money, and you hope that the things you buy are actually worth their price, but there are lots of tricky sellers out there trying to hustle you. When it comes to wine, buyers need to be especially careful, unlike a pair of fake shoes, for example, drinking wine from an unreputable seller might end up harming you or worse, resulting in permanent damage to your body. To help you know what scams to look for we have put together a list of four ways wine lovers get ripped off in China! Keep your eyes open and you might save some cash and maybe even a trip to the emergency room.
1. Fake Wine
China is littered with a nearly endless number of fake products. From shoes, handbags, and almost any other consumer good, sellers have found a way to make a cheaper version of a product trying to lure distracted consumers. Of course, that hasn’t stopped wine sellers from making fake wines to sell on the market. According to the Interprofessional Council of Bordeaux Wine, an estimated 30,000 bottles of fake imported wine are sold per hour in China (Source: Forbes.com).
But what exactly is fake wine? That depends on how unscrupulous a seller is. Some fake wines are simply real wines diluted with water or juice. However, in other circumstances, fake wine might include toxic chemicals such as lead acetate, diethylene glycol, and methanol. In some cases, bottles of wine were found to include no traces of any plant-based materials – which means that rather than grown on a vine, these wines were 100% made from chemicals.
2. Mislabeled Wine
Related to fake wine, the chances of getting sick from mislabeled wine are slightly less, but it is not guaranteed that you won’t enter into a depressive state when you find out that expensive bottle of wine you thought you were buying was actually a cheap wine with another label plastered on top. Sometimes, sellers will mislabel wine to avoid paying high import tariffs, for example, a low-tariff Chilean wine might be passed off as a more expensive Old-World wine that usually carries a higher import cost. As such you will pay for Old-World prices (for a cheaper wine), while the seller gets the benefit of paying lower tariffs.
Another common scam is for sellers to reuse and re-cork bottles. One estimate claims that the average bottle of Champagne in China is filled seven times (Source: Weekly Times). In this scam, sellers will use a bottle of an expensive brand and fill it with cheaper booze. The scam is so profitable, that some empty bottles (literal trash) will sell for as much as 300 USD.
3. Restaurant Over Hype
You may think that ordering wine inside a restaurant may prevent you from being scammed, but often alcoholic drinks are a restaurant’s largest margin of profit. The incentive to over-charge is far too great, especially when considering that the average wine drinker has no idea what they are buying. Obviously, buying one individual glass will be more expensive (per mL drank) than buying a whole bottle, but that’s part of the scam too. Restaurants will inflate their per glass price to get you to buy more wine. In practice, there’s nothing wrong with this. After all, you are getting more booze for your buck, but the problem is that oftentimes restaurants will sell you a bottle of wine that may be many multiples of the original cost. Most restaurants work on 500% margin for wines (it's the industry norm), but some restaurants will go even higher than this.
Shady restaurants will sell you an Old-World bottle with a fancy description that will make the bottle sound as if it is worth hundreds, in reality, that same bottle can probably be found in any European market for under 5 Euros. In this case, you are not being sold fake wine or even being lied about the contents of a bottle, the trickery here is from your lack of awareness as a consumer.
4. Avoiding Tariffs
As with any imported item, tariffs will add to the price of the item you are trying to buy. This is a reality all buyers must accept, however, sometimes tariffs will change from month to month, allowing shameless sellers to sell products at a much higher price with the guise of taxes and tariffs. We have already mentioned how some sellers will rebottle wine that comes from countries with lower tariffs as more expensive wines, but another common hustle is for sellers to falsify the origin and documents for the items there are importing.
Earlier, nearly 2,000 bottles of wine were seized by the Shanghai customs department. Some of these bottles were listed as having a value of only 10 Euros, while in reality, the bottles might sell for as much as 4,000 RMB! Although it may seem that the smuggle and contraband of these bottles might create a cheaper market for consumers, instead, it creates an unregulated mess that incentivizes sellers to do some of the previously mentioned scams.
Final Take
For centuries the Latin phrase caveat emptor has warned consumers about the risk of buying things. Literally translated to “buyer beware,” it is meant to remind buyers that they are responsible for their purchasing decisions. Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. Overly cheap prices might signal that a seller is trying to sell you something that’s not actually what you want to buy.
On the other hand, do not assume that a more expensive bottle is a higher quality wine – not everything that glitters is gold! The world of wine drinking can be complicated, but paying a little attention might save you some money – or perhaps even your life! The next time you are buying wine, pay attention to the bottles, their labels, and of course the seller. A trusty seller will make a profit from what they are selling you, but they will never scam you.
Looking to learn more about wine, join a community of wine lovers in China, and even buy some wine from a reputable seller? Join our amazing WeChat group!
