COUNTERFEIT WINE RING BUSTED

Italian authorities broke up a counterfeit wine ring. More than a dozen people have been arrested or are under investigation by Italian police for allegedly knocking off bottles of the high-end red wine known as Bolgheri Sassicaia by Tenuta San Guido. (* Hmm. I didn’t know Judy Tenuda had a winery.) The Bolgheri Sassicaia red wine, produced in Tuscany, can fetch up to around $420 per bottle. The counterfeit wine, meanwhile, is produced in Sicily, with the bottles imported from Turkey, and the fake labels and wooden cases from Bulgaria. Italian authorities confiscated 700 cases of wine, or 4,200 bottles, during the investigation. Several customers from Russia, China and Korea had already placed orders for thousands of cases.
* It’s not like people in Russia, China and Korea can complain that their wine tastes bad.
* The difference between a $420 bottle of wine and a cheap knockoff is that they don’t wash their feet before stomping the grapes for the cheap stuff.
* “Bolgheri Sassicaia” translates to “Big Sucker” in English.
* If this is supposed to make me feel bad for people who can spend $420 on a bottle of wine, it’s not working.
* America has fake news, Italy has fake booze.