Word: berte
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...innocence, Cruse shot back in righteous anger: "You'll see, I'll be the Nixon of Bordeaux." That prediction turned out to be more accurate than he could have possibly wished. Last week, in a criminal court, Cruse, his cousin Yvan, a freewheeling wine broker named Pierre Bert and 15 lesser merchants were on trial, charged with falsifying labels, tampering with official documents, and trying to sell doctored wine...
According to a bill of particulars filed by four inspectors, the scandal began when Broker Bert bought up huge quantities of cheap red wine from the Midi in 1973, when prices for Bordeaux reds had soared in a speculative binge. He also bought quantities of Bordeaux whites, whose prices were not rising. One odd loophole in the government's appellation controlée regulations was that official papers for wines were marked by region of origin but not by color. Bert was accused of switching the papers for the two batches of wines by stamping blanc on the Midi...
...Legal. Moreover, on the first day of the trial, Bert admitted to doctoring inferior Bordeaux reds to improve their taste-and price. He said that he never received a single complaint from any of his customers. Bert conceded that he had mixed white wines with red, because "a little white wine does not harm the quality when there is too much tannin in the red." "Yes, but it's not legal," said the presiding judge, resplendent in a black robe trimmed with artificial ermine. "No, but it's good," answered Bert...
Later in the trial, a government fraud inspector testified that the house of Cruse had also stretched real Bordeaux by mixing it with low-class Midi red. A truck driver who frequently drove from Bert's warehouse to the Cruse cellars admitted that he had switched papers to disguise the origin of the cheap red Midi wine. Still another witness was a lawyer for le fisc (the French income tax office), who asked that the court fine the defendants $18 million for cheating the government...
About eight minutes later at the other end of the field, Rutgers quarterback Bert Kosup punched over a one-yard touchdown, completing the game scoring and making the Scarlet Knights 24-21 victors...