Paris wine bars are duping customers, investigation finds

Restaurants in Paris are replacing expensive wines ordered by customers with cheaper versions in the glass to maximise their profit margins. Staff at Parisian restaurants told Le Parisien anonymously that they were swapping out wines ordered by some customer with less expensive ones. According to the report, waiters in Paris bars, particularly those located in tourist spots, were being instructed to do this by their bosses in order to protect their margins. "I sometimes put leftover wine in a single bottle for happy hour, or replace Bardolino with Chianti, which is much cheaper and not at all the same in terms of taste. Or even pass off Beaujolais, which some bosses tend to overbuy, as Côtes-du-Rhône," said one server who spoke to Le Parisien. Another told the French newspaper that "apart from the regulars, all the other customers were getting ripped off". "When I saw American tourists arriving on the terrace, I knew they were going to be ripped off," says the professional who worked in the Montmartre district. Le Parisien conducted an undercover investigation into the claims. Gwilherm de Cerval, a journalist and former sommelier in several luxury hotels, and Marina Giuberti, a sommelier and wine merchant, posed as English-speaking tourists to see whether they would be duped. At one venue, de Cerval said that an €8.50 glass of Chablis had the characteristics of a Sauvignon Blanc. Elsewhere, Giuberti ordered a €7.50 glass of Sancerre which, when served, she said was more like a generic Sauvignon Blanc. Servers told the French outlet that they were regularly instructed by their bosses to serve a different wine to that which was ordered so as not to open a new bottle of a more expensive label and risk wastage. "We'd get yelled at by the owner if the most expensive bottle went down too quickly. Only once did a customer discover the deception: it was a sommelier," one waiter said.