Howwwlllllll!!!!!

I first encountered Le Beast earlier this year at the untamed frontier of You Tube. Type “wine” into the video sharing site and you are generally confronted with an endless stream of Gary Vee’s crazed thunderpants, but look closer and an even more beastly presence  will reveal itself. Unlike Gary, this beast is small, furry and has a hand stuck up his back side.

Le Beast is both a wolf like monster and an enduring enigma. History reports that “Le Bete” savagely consumed nearly one hundred young girls in the hills and vineyards of the Languedoc (South-West France) in the 1760’s. It is widely regarded as the true story that inspired Little Red Riding Hood.

Every effort to stop Le Bete failed, defying even King Louis XV who sent a crack squad to the region with murder in mind. Some say the wolf hid in the underground tunnels of an ancient Chateau near Gabian and some claim to have even seen a shadow of him in its windows. Le Bete had remained a mystery to this day. Until now.

Defying nature and reason, he has resurfaced after 250 years with a simple mission to reclaim the wine world for France.

From his own snout, a rallying cry has been issued (a warning to those with a delicate disposition, this is strong stuff):

I have taken it upon myself to lead France out of its frightful state, to take charge in a business where there is no leadership. Where we are treated as if we were drug dealers by our government, where the anti-wine lobbies are trying to take away our god given right to make and enjoy wine. Our culture is being eroded, our product is being degraded, our passion is being bled from us.

We have let them do this to us. We have been arrogant, we have been elitist, we have been snobby. We must repent and change our ways. We must demonstrate that wine is fun and there is no room for pretense. This means that my colleagues in Bordeaux, Champagne and Burgundy must heed the warning howl of Le Beast. Repent or face the consequences!

Le Beast has put his name to the product of the vine in order to show the world that good French wine can be made and sold at reasonable prices. We, perhaps, should choose to ignore his natural attraction to Virgin for his latest promotion – a blood lust for young innocents is not so easy shaken, even after two centuries underground.

Visit Virgin Wines to view the wine and if you want to find out more about Le Beast, you can keep a track of his adventures here and you can also follow him on twitter.

To w-w-w-wwhet your appetite:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nte5tFh8q9o&feature=player_embedded]

Decanter Magazine reports on a case of intrigue, fraud and scientific investigation..

Wine collector Hardy Rodenstock ‘removed labels from ancient bottles’ of French wines and had them reproduced, according to German magazine Stern. In an article titled ‘The Great Label Swindle,’ Stern says in its 13 November issue, ‘It is unclear whether the German justice department will investigate’ Rodenstock ‘since the reprinting of wine labels by itself is not a criminal offence.’

Choose a name, make up a price and away you go! It's easy!

Rodenstock is the source of the so-called Thomas Jefferson bottles, which some experts have pronounced fraudulent and are the subject of litigation. Stern claims Rodenstock had labels reproduced in a small printing house in Germany.

It quotes Rodenstock as saying he had done business with the owners of the company but they never printed wine labels for him. Printing house owner Rüdiger Kluth told Stern the labels ‘included Rothschild, Pétrus, many known names.’ The reproduced labels, he said, looked ‘really old.’ The Kluths said they deliberately used old yellowed paper. Stern claims that in 2007 Rodenstock gave a client a gift of three wine labels, framed.

One was from a 1945 Mouton Rothschild Jeroboam; the label had a golden V, for victory over Nazi Germany that year. A French Finance Ministry laboratory, the Laboratoire SCL in Bordeaux, compared the Mouton label to an original from the chateau, and according to Stern, pronounced it a fake.

At the same time, Mouton managing director Hervé Berland pointed to various discrepancies and said, according to Stern, ‘the Rodenstock label is fake.’ The laboratory, Stern said, ‘fully confirms Berland’s judgment.’ The laboratory also examined the backs of the other labels Rodenstock had framed for his client, a Mouton and Lafite, both purportedly from 1900.

Stern said, ‘The glue, according to the results, is the same on all the labels. It is a glue that did not exist in 1900, a synthetic product made of polyvinyl acetate, that was developed in Germany.’

Winemakers in France’s Languedoc region, which has suffered a reputation of being the “poor relation” to its Bordeaux and Cote Du Rhone cousins, have called their lastest product “Vin De Merde”.

Go beyond the joke and you’ll see that this is a story of despair…

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AD1IwzHE72Q]