Suspected Fake Penfolds Appeared in An Online Store

2017-06-27 11:23 WBO Global

Write | WBO Team

Translate and Edit | WBO Kiwi


Real Penfolds (left) and suspected counterfeit (right)

Last week, the domestic well-known wine training institution in Shanghai, STEPHEN WINE issued:The teaching assistant bought a few bottles of Penfolds Bin389 in one of the most famous online store YHD.COM for teaching, unexpectedly, when they open one to try, they found the bottle tasted quite different from those bought in other channels, poor quality corks, no anti-counterfeit labels, and signs of second-stuffing.

According to the article released pictures, the back label of suspected counterfeit Penfolds Bin389 displayed importer Ningbo Peng Cheng Wang Import and Export Co,. Ltd., and it is one of the authorized importers of Penfolds.

In this regard, WBO interviewed a few relevant people, to dig out the ins and outs of the incidents, as well as the underlying reasons behind the event. 

Everyone on the site suspected the quality of the wine

According to Stephen Li, the founder of STEPHEN WINE, Penfolds Bin389 and Bin407 have been used in his wine training for many times, his team usually purchases such popular products in the JD.COM and other reliable online business platform. Due to his colleagues enjoy shopping at YHD.COM, in addition to the sale of suspected counterfeit Penfolds business commitments can invoicing, sales of products from the TWE authorized dealers, plus with its price CNY498( € 65.18), is not cheap, then the colleague made purchase orders trustingly.

“But in the class, teaching assistant detected quality problems when decanting the wine.Then opened another bottle of the same product bought in JD.COM, presented educators, assistants, trainees all found obvious difference in two bottles of the same wine, which is not fault caused by storage, transportation problems, that is, the quality is much lower than what we drank before" said Stephen Li.

"Since then, we communicate with the seller through WeChat, they are very polite at the beginning, but all Penfolds Bin389 rushed off the shop very shortly. And when we contacted with the YHD.COM, they hasn’t fulfilled the commitment (false1 compensate 3), only agreed to return the remained 3 bottles which didn't opened yet."

The importer didn’t supply YHD.COM with Penfolds

Chen Hai, general manager of Peng Cheng Wang Wines, told WBO, “they didn’t supply YHD.COM with Penfolds. ”

Chen Hai pointed out, he heard that many counterfeits were detected in Guangdong a few days ago and their back label wrote Peng Cheng Wang. But as I knew, such products haven’t entering into east China market. I have nothing to do with these incidents, because we only import genuine Penfolds from Australia, or transfer from importers in other provinces and cities within the TWE system. We never and will not import unauthorized Penfolds.”

Anti-counterfeit QR code on real Penfolds 

Through serious comparison, WBO found authentic Penfolds from Peng Cheng Wang, and suspected counterfeit Penfolds purchased by STEPHEN WINE are completely different in their back label.

"If anyone sells under the disguise of parallel products, the possibility of fakes is very large."

As for emergence of flooding of fake Penfolds, Chen Hai attributed these problems to Penfolds’ super popularity but too short of supply in China. 

"Last year,TWE implemented measures to control parallel imports behavior, and now there should be seldom parallel imports on China market, if anyone sells under the disguise of parallel products, the possibility of fakes is very large." Chen Hai said, "When buying Penfolds, don't hurry to choose products below the normal price. Sometimes price is equal to quality, it is easy to buy Penfolds counterfeit at too low prices."

Reflection: ineffective quality control of the online platform, brand owner should face up to the fakes

WBO reporter believes,  this incident, no doubt exposed many problems of imported wine selling in the online channel. At present, in the cooperation of many online platforms with importers, the main inspection procedure are by customs documents, and the suspected of fakes exposed the management problem of YHD.COM. In addition, Penfolds brand owner TWE has to face up to the anti-counterfeit problem in China

Obviously, many wine business insiders especially those wine consumers don’t know how to verify and distinguish fake Penfolds from genuine Penfolds when they encounter such cases