Word: scandal
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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This amorous fencing match is continually interrupted by a farcical gallimaufry of gulls, lechers, tricksters and cynics. Some of their names indicate their foibles: Scandal, Tattle and Mrs. Frail, a succulent baggage of seeming accessibility who hopes to bed her way to wealth. Thanks to the brushstroke acting skill of John McMartin, the drollest portrait of all is Foresight, a doddering astrologist so fervently absorbed in his zodiacal predictions that he fails to notice that his wife is cuckolding him under the age-old sign of Venery...
Overenthusiastic French vignerons have a weakness for declaring their latest vintage to be "the wine of the century." Thus when 18 Bordeaux wine merchants and brokers, plus one laboratory chemist, went on trial late last month on charges of selling fraudulently labeled wine, the scandal was inevitably pronounced "the wine trial of the century." That may be a slightly extravagant claim; commenting on the scandal, a London Sunday Times cartoon showed a more restrained British wine-taster savoring the events and declaring, "not a great trial but an interesting one." Nonetheless, the episode has proved an embarrassment to France...
...most celebrated of the defendants was Lionel Cruse, head of the 155-year-old firm of Cruse et Fils Freres. When the scandal broke in June 1973, it was quickly dubbed the "Winegate" affair by French papers. Protesting his 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...
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...
...intention of selling them. Cruse claims that all the wine was confiscated by inspectors, and the chances are that none of it ever went on sale. Nonetheless, a number of Bordeaux merchants are worried about adverse publicity. After all, there are fresh memories of the notorious Vino Ferrari scandal of 1968, when Italian inspectors discovered that millions of quarts of red wine had been made from banana paste, tar acid, seaweed and other strange ingredients. It took the Italians five years to recover from that public relations disaster, and the Bordeaux wine industry is anxious. According to one story circulating...