Escape to the Chateau
OPINION: If you have watched the television programme Escape to the Chateau you may, like me, have been tempted to put your house on the market and trade up to a magnificent chateau in a desirable corner of France.
Wine Australia now has a database of wine label images and information that allows anyone to check the authenticity of a potential purchase. The system, called Export Label Image Search System (ELISS), is a database of wines that have been legitimately exported.
Rachel Triggs, General Manager of Corporate Affaird and Regulations for Wine Australia, told Wine Searcher that many fake labels are often badly designed, making them easy to spot when matched against the images stored on ELISS. If I were a wine counterfeiter, ELISS would be my "go to" website. Not only would it give me a precise image upon which to base my dodgy wine packaging, it would also reveal the vintages that had been exported to my target market. Or am I missing something...?
