When I was little, my grandmother had a grapevine on the fence that separated her house from her neighbor's house. My sisters and I spent hours arguing with the boys next door. We said the vine was ours and they said it was theirs. The grapes, we reasoned, were on our side of the fence, but the vine, they said, was rooted on their side.

This argument went on for months until the grapevine eventually died, leaving the grapes wilted and shriveled. I knew the vine was worthless, so I told the boys next door they could have the grapevine if they gave me their yo-yo. They agreed and I ran off with my new toy. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had just committed a pseudo-form of wine fraud.

By definition, wine fraud is a type of fraud where customers are sold wine illegally. Like a grape known for being seedy or a vineyard known for being shady, wine fraud has the potential to spoil the wine lover's spirit. This wine is sometimes filled with chemicals that can cause sickness or it is cheap wine sold for prices much higher than it's worth. While it may seem that wine fraud is limited to wines sold in back alleys or out of the trunks of beaten down cars, seemingly legit vendors sell many cases of fraudulent wine. You may have been a victim of wine fraud and never even realized it.

This type of fraud can have many faces, with one being label fraud. This is when labels of pricey wines are adhered to non-expensive bottles and sold as if they were the real thing. Just as fake Cuban cigars often contain real Cuban cigar labels, fake bottles of Chateau Lafite often contain real Chateau Lafite labels. This leads people to pay extreme amounts of money for bottles of wine that may be filled with something as cheap as Mad Dog.

As with many fraudulent operations, label fraud often involves a large number of people. With organization that mirrors a car theft ring, this fraud brings several people together with the intent of labeling unknowing consumers "ripped off." In 2000, for example, authorities in Italy uncovered a warehouse filled with close to twenty thousand bottles of inexpensive wine adorned with 1995 Sassicaia Super Tuscan labels.