The Japan Times - Fizzled out: French winemaker risks prison over champagne fraud

Didier Chopin, 56, was also requested to pay a fine of 100,000 euros on charges of fraud and theft of a protected brand name at the trial, which started on Tuesday.

The winemaker from the Aisne region produced and sold hundreds of thousands of fake champagne bottles for a year, between 2022 and 2023. He produced the champagne with wines from Spain and southern France, to which he added aromas and carbonised gas to make them sparkling.

The total value of the fraud was estimated at several millions of euros.

The prosecution at the Reims criminal court also requested that the winemaker's wife incur a suspended prison sentence of two years and a fine of 100,000 euros on the same charges of fraud and theft of a protected brand name.

The prosecution denounced "a cynical and premeditated logic of profit," and requested that the couple be definitively banned from running a business and from exercising any industrial or commercial professions in the champagne sector.

The confiscation of all seized possessions and the destruction of all seized bottles was also requested.

The couple's holding company, SAS Chopin, was requested to pay a 300,000 euro fine on charges of embezzlement and misuse of company assets.

The court is expected to announce its verdict on September 2.

"This is a sad conclusion. I made a mistake, I am ruined and I have nothing else to add," Chopin told reporters.

The winemaker's lawyer, Francis Fossier, had argued for a fully suspended prison sentence. His client had already spent "seven months" in prison in Morocco "in horrible conditions," said Fossier.

After the champagne fraud was revealed by former employees in 2023, Chopin had fled to Morocco and launched a new vegetable farming business there. He was then arrested, convicted and sentenced to prison on accusations linked to uncovered cheques.

The part of the trial relating to customs violations -- concerning the export of the fake champagne outside of France -- has been adjourned to February 3, 2026.

The winemaker also faces another legal procedure after five former employees accused him of sexual assault.

Y.Kimura--JT