From now on, all Lafite wine bottles have a proof tag

With this system, Château Lafite Rothschild starts to fight against counterfeits of their products, above all on the Chinese market. In parallel, the Domaines Barons de Rothschild opened an account on “Weibo”, known as the Chinese Twitter, to inform Chinese consumers and to answer questions.

In China, more or less every second Lafite bottle is a counterfeit. Those wine counterfeits are, of course, known to the Chinese government. The authorities have now declared war on those deeds, for health reasons as well as because of tax evasion. As early as in 2010, the Chinese authorities used the Prooftag system in the service of documents. Now, the Chinese government has accepted proof tags for wines, too.

“Nobody knows the exact extent of the problem with counterfeited wines but we know it exists”, Franck Bourières, marketing manager at the Prooftag company, says. “Lafite’s use of our brand protection system is a gratifying signal.”

Château Lafite Rothschild is, however, not the first producer to use proof tags on wine bottles. So far, the Ausone, Margaux and Latour châteaux use this system, too. The Palmer and Smith Haut Lafitte, the Domaine de Comte Lafon châteaux, Burgundy and the Domaine Ponsot on the Rhône as well as Château Montelena, California, use Prooftag.

“It is difficult to find a system that works”, James de Roany, counselor of the French government, says. “Unfortunately, there is no infallible system. However, the best ones use technologies that cannot be reproduced like at the Prooftag company. Geo localization via GPS is an appropriate tool to trace each single bottle, and consumers can download data on their smartphones to proof the authenticity via security label as early as before they purchase the wine.” (red.yoopress)