Online Public Relations Thoughts

This story is humiliating for one of the world's largest wine companies. It seems that some Frenchmen passed off inferior wine as Pinot Noir to E&J Gallo wine company and got away with it for two years. The question is how did Gallo not know? Were the sophisticated palates of its wine tasters fooled by common Malbec and Shiraz? If so, what does that say about one's ability to distinguish one wine from another? This is a PR disaster for the brand and Gallo will have to work hard to rebuild its image, if it chooses to do so. At least, the old jibes against Gallo as a "cheap wine" company will return in force. The irony of the story is that Gallo apparently never did figure out the scam. It was inspectors who realized that there could not have been that much acerage of Pinot Noir under production.