1985 diethylene glycol wine scandal
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The 1985 diethylene glycol wine scandal () was an incident in which several Austrian
wineries A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, b ...
illegally
adulterated An adulterant is caused by the act of adulteration, a practice of secretly mixing a substance with another. Typical substances that are adulterated include but are not limited to food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, fuel, or other chemicals, th ...
their wines using the toxic substance
diethylene glycol Diethylene glycol (DEG) is an organic compound with the formula (HOCH2CH2)2O. It is a colorless, practically odorless, and hygroscopic liquid with a sweetish taste. It is a four carbon dimer of ethylene glycol. It is miscible in water, alcohol, ...
(a minor ingredient in some brands of
antifreeze An antifreeze is an additive which lowers the freezing point of a water-based liquid. An antifreeze mixture is used to achieve freezing-point depression for cold environments. Common antifreezes also increase the boiling point of the liquid, all ...
) to make the wines appear
sweeter Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, keto ...
and more full-bodied in the style of
late harvest wine Late harvest wine is wine made from grapes left on the vine longer than usual. ''Late harvest'' is usually an indication of a sweet dessert wine, such as late harvest Riesling. Late harvest grapes are often more similar to raisins, but have been ...
s.Sonntagsblitz, July 10, 2005: ''Im Wein war nicht nur Wahrheit''
("In wine was not only truth")
Many of these
Austrian wine Austrian wines are mostly dry white wines (often made from the Grüner Veltliner grape), though some sweeter white wines (such as dessert wines made around the Neusiedler See) are also produced. About 30% of the wines are red, made from Blauf ...
s were exported to
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, some of them in bulk to be bottled at large-scale West German
bottling Bottling lines are production lines that fill a product, generally a beverage, into bottles on a large scale. Many prepared foods are also bottled, such as sauces, syrups, marinades, oils and vinegars. Beer bottling process Packaging of bottle ...
facilities. At these facilities, some Austrian wines were illegally blended into
German wine German wine is primarily produced in the west of Germany, along the river Rhine and its tributaries, with the oldest plantations going back to the Ancient Rome, Roman era. Approximately 60 percent of German wine is produced in the state of Rhine ...
s by the importers, resulting in diethylene glycol ending up in some bulk-bottled West German wines as well. The scandal was uncovered by wine laboratories performing
quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach places ...
s on wines sold in West Germany, and immediately made headlines around the world. The affected wines were immediately withdrawn from the market. A number of people involved in the scandal were sentenced to prison or heavy fines in Austria and West Germany. The short-term effect of the scandal was a complete collapse of Austrian wine exports and a total loss of reputation of the entire Austrian wine industry, with significant adverse effects on the reputation of German wines as well. The long-term effect was that the Austrian wine industry focused their production on other wine types than previously, primarily dry
white wine White wine is a wine that is Fermentation in winemaking, fermented without skin contact. The wine color, colour can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold. It is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the non-coloured Juice vesicles, ...
s instead of sweet wines, and increasingly targeted a higher
market segment In marketing, market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers (known as ''segments'') based on some type of shared charact ...
, but it took the Austrian wine industry over a decade to recover. Much stricter
wine law Wine laws are legislation regulating various aspects of production and sales of wine. The purpose of wine laws includes combating wine fraud, by means of regulated protected designations of origin, labelling practices and classification of wine, a ...
s were also enacted by Austria.


Background

At the time of the scandal,
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
was the most important export market for
Austrian wine Austrian wines are mostly dry white wines (often made from the Grüner Veltliner grape), though some sweeter white wines (such as dessert wines made around the Neusiedler See) are also produced. About 30% of the wines are red, made from Blauf ...
and had been so for a number of years, with an increasing trend. The Austrian wines exported to West Germany were of a similar style to those produced by West Germany itself, meaning semi-
sweet Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones ...
and sweet
white wine White wine is a wine that is Fermentation in winemaking, fermented without skin contact. The wine color, colour can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold. It is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the non-coloured Juice vesicles, ...
s. However, many of these Austrian wines were focused on the low cost segment, and were priced lower than German wines at the corresponding level of sweetness. The traditional sweet wines of West Germany and
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
are produced from late harvest grapes, some of them affected by
noble rot Noble rot (french: pourriture noble; german: Edelfäule; it, Muffa nobile; hu, Aszúsodás) is the beneficial form of a grey fungus, ''Botrytis cinerea'', affecting wine grapes. Infestation by ''Botrytis'' requires moist conditions. If the we ...
, and labelled in a hierarchy of
Prädikat The German wine classification system puts a strong emphasis on standardization and factual completeness, and was first implemented by the German Wine Law of 1971. Nearly all of Germany's vineyards are delineated and registered as one of approxi ...
designations from
Kabinett Kabinett (literal meaning: cabinet), or sometimes Kabinettwein (literal meaning: a wine set aside in a cabinet), is a German language wine term for a wine which is made from fully ripened grapes of the main harvest, typically picked in September, ...
to
Trockenbeerenauslese ''Trockenbeerenauslese'' (literal meaning: 'dried berry selection') is a German language wine term for a medium to full body dessert wine. ''Trockenbeerenauslese'' is the highest in sugar content in the ''Prädikatswein'' category of the Austrian ...
, depending on the ripeness of the grapes. Although
sweet reserve The subjective sweetness of a wine is determined by the interaction of several factors, including the amount of sugar in the wine, but also the relative levels of alcohol, acids, and tannins. Sugars and alcohol enhance a wine's sweetness, whil ...
(blending a wine with its own
must Must (from the Latin ''vinum mustum'', "young wine") is freshly crushed fruit juice (usually grape juice) that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit. The solid portion of the must is called pomace and typically makes up 7–23% of t ...
) was allowed for the production of semi-sweet wines, no external sources of
sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...
were allowed for any wines with a Prädikat designation. Thus, the production of wines at higher Prädikat levels tends to vary from year to year depending on
vintage Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product—wine (see Harvest (wine)). A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certa ...
conditions, and all wines with higher designations sell at a premium price. As the sweet wines were more favoured at the time of the scandal than they have been in the 1990s and 2000s, and since the Prädikat designations were almost universally recognized throughout the German-speaking countries, a cheap
Auslese ''Auslese'' (literal meaning: "selected harvest"; plural form is ''Auslesen'') is a German language wine term for a late harvest wine and is a riper category than Spätlese in the '' Prädikatswein'' category of the Austrian and German wine class ...
or
Beerenauslese ''Beerenauslese'' (literally: "selection of berries") is a German language wine term for a late harvest wine with noble rot. Beerenauslese is a category in the '' Prädikatswein'' category of the Austrian and German wine classifications, and is a ...
was often identified as a "bargain" by many German consumers. Many of the cheap sweet wines exported from Austria were blends from different grape varieties, and several of them did not carry any
varietal A varietal wine is a wine made primarily from a single named grape variety, and which typically displays the name of that variety on the wine label.The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000.winepros.com.au. ...
designations, in contrast to the more expensive Prädikat wines of West Germany, which often were produced from
Riesling Riesling (, ; ) is a white grape variety that originated in the Rhine region. Riesling is an aromatic grape variety displaying flowery, almost perfumed, aromas as well as high acidity. It is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and sparkling wh ...
grapes. Some Austrian exporters had entered into long-term contracts with
supermarket chain A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limit ...
s to supply large quantities of wine at a specified quality level in terms of Prädikat. Apparently these producers ran into problems in some weak vintages, where much of the grape harvest did not reach sufficient ripeness levels. At the levels of ripeness that were reached, the wines would be less sweet, less full-bodied and more
acidic In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...
. One vintage plagued by these problems in Austria was 1982. It is believed that when this led to insufficient quantities of wine being available to fulfill the contracts, some producers started to search for methods, including illegal ones, to "correct" the wines. By itself, simple sweetening (also illegal) would not necessarily do the job, since it would not sufficiently correct the taste profile of the wine. By using
diethylene glycol Diethylene glycol (DEG) is an organic compound with the formula (HOCH2CH2)2O. It is a colorless, practically odorless, and hygroscopic liquid with a sweetish taste. It is a four carbon dimer of ethylene glycol. It is miscible in water, alcohol, ...
(DEG), it was possible to affect both the impression of sweetness and the body of the wine. German wine chemists have stated that it is unlikely that an individual winemaker of a small winery had sufficient chemical knowledge to devise the scheme, implying that the recipe must have been drawn up by a knowledgeable wine chemist consulting for a large-scale producer.Zeit Online, 1985
Saure Trauben, süße Sünden
("Sour grapes, sweet sins")


Diethylene glycol

DEG was otherwise used as an industrial chemical or as
antifreeze An antifreeze is an additive which lowers the freezing point of a water-based liquid. An antifreeze mixture is used to achieve freezing-point depression for cold environments. Common antifreezes also increase the boiling point of the liquid, all ...
, although
ethylene glycol Ethylene glycol (IUPAC name: ethane-1,2-diol) is an organic compound (a vicinal diol) with the formula . It is mainly used for two purposes, as a raw material in the manufacture of polyester fibers and for antifreeze formulations. It is an odo ...
is more common for that application. Adulteration of products with DEG has led to thousands of deaths worldwide since the first recorded case: the Elixir sulfanilamide incident in 1937. Most of the recalled wines contained up to a few grams of DEG per litre (and many only a fraction of a gram), which meant that dozens of bottles would have to be consumed in a limited period of time to reach the lethal dose of approximately 40 grams. However, in one record-setting wine (a 1981
Welschriesling Welschriesling is a white wine grape variety, unrelated to the Rhine Riesling, that is grown throughout Central Europe. Origin The descendance of Welschriesling is uncertain. The German name ''Welschriesling'' literally means ' Romanic Riesling' ...
Beerenauslese from
Burgenland Burgenland (; hu, Őrvidék; hr, Gradišće; Austro-Bavarian: ''Burgnland;'' Slovene: ''Gradiščanska'') is the easternmost and least populous state of Austria. It consists of two statutory cities and seven rural districts, with a total of ...
) 48 grams per litre was detected, which meant that the consumption of a single bottle could have been lethal. Also, long-term consumption of DEG is known to damage the
kidney The kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped organs found in vertebrates. They are located on the left and right in the retroperitoneal space, and in adult humans are about in length. They receive blood from the paired renal arteries; blood ...
,
liver The liver is a major Organ (anatomy), organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the Protein biosynthesis, synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for ...
and
brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...
.WDR, July 9, 2005: ''Vor 20 Jahren: Glykol-Wein-Skandal wird bekannt -Mit Frostschutz gepanscht''
("20 years ago: glycol wine scandal comes to noise - adulterated with antifreeze")


Discovery

The first wine discovered to contain DEG was a 1983 Ruster Auslese from a supermarket in
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
, analysed on June 27, 1985. Domestic
wine fraud Wine fraud relates to the commercial aspects of wine. The most prevalent type of fraud is one where wines are adulterated, usually with the addition of cheaper products (e.g. juices) and sometimes with harmful chemicals and sweeteners (compensati ...
involving illegal sweetening had occurred earlier in West Germany, and had led to investigations and
prosecution A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial ...
of the winemakers involved. What made the 1985 finds very different was that a toxic compound had been used, and subsequent sampling indicated that a significant number of different bottlings were part of this dangerous adulteration scheme. Therefore, unlike cases of simple sweetening, the 1985 DEG findings immediately took the proportion of a full-scale scandal requiring action by federal authorities in both West Germany and Austria. On July 9, the Federal Ministry of Health in
Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
issued an official health warning against the consumption of Austrian wines.Stuttgarter Zeitung, July 6, 2005: ''"Zum Wohl, Glykol"''
The findings immediately made headlines in West German media, and from there were cabled out throughout the world.


Market consequences

From mid-July onwards, it was almost impossible to sell Austrian wine on any export market. Some countries like Switzerland and France confiscated thousands of bottles, and Japan introduced a ban on the import and sale of all Austrian wines on July 29, 1985, and in many other countries Austrian wines were removed from shelves by wine dealers. From a pre-1985 level of around 45 million liters per year, exports immediately fell to one-tenth, or around 4.4 million liters in 1986. They stayed at approximately the same level until 1989, and were slightly higher in 1990–97, but still well below pre-1985 levels. Not until 2001 did the export volume, at just over 50 million liters, match the old level. It thus took the Austrian wine industry fifteen years to regain its former position in terms of export volume, despite optimistic predictions from some quarters in Austria that it would all be forgotten in other countries in one year's time.


Legal consequences

In the weeks following the breaking of the scandal, dozens of wine producers and wine dealers were arrested by Austrian authorities. The industry's practice of DEG adulteration was traced back to Otto Nadrasky, a 58-year-old chemist and wine consultant from
Grafenwörth Grafenwörth is a municipality in the district of Tulln in the Austrian state of Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in th ...
,
Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...
. The first prison sentence, of one and a half years, followed in mid-October. Many of the adulterated wines were found to originate in
Wagram Deutsch-Wagram (literally "German Wagram", ), often shortened to Wagram, is a village in the Gänserndorf District, in the states of Austria, state of Lower Austria, Austria. It is in the Morava (river), Marchfeld Basin, close to the Vienna city ...
in Lower Austria, where a consulting wine chemist was prosecuted. One of the convicted Wagram winemakers, Karl Grill, proprietor of ''Firma Gebrüder Grill'', committed
suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
after being sentenced. A stricter wine law was enacted by the
Parliament of Austria The Austrian Parliament (german: Österreichisches Parlament) is the bicameral federal legislature of the Austrian Republic. It consists of two chambers – the National Council and the Federal Council. In specific cases, both houses convene ...
on August 29, 1985. Having seen the immediate collapse of wine exports, the Austrian government rushed this legislation through parliament in order for it to be in effect before the 1985 harvest. In West Germany, following a lengthy investigation, six former leading employees of the wholesale dealer and bottler Pieroth were sentenced to fines of one million
Deutsche Mark The Deutsche Mark (; English: ''German mark''), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was ...
s by the ''
Landgericht ''Landgericht'' may refer to: * Landgericht (Germany), a mid-level court in the present-day judicial system of Germany *: For example, ** Landgericht Berlin ** Landgericht Bremen * Landgericht (medieval) The ''Landgericht'' (plural: ''Landgerichte ...
'' in
Koblenz Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman mili ...
in April 1996. Further legal action took place over the coming years across West Germany. Pieroth fought a legal action in the
administrative court An administrative court is a type of court specializing in administrative law, particularly disputes concerning the exercise of public power. Their role is to ascertain that official acts are consistent with the law. Such courts are considered s ...
s in order to try to establish that the Federal Minister for Youth, Family and Health,
Heiner Geißler Heiner Geißler (3 March 1930 – 12 September 2017) was a German politician with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and a federal minister from 1982 to 1985. Career Born Heinrichjosef Georg Geißler in Gleisweiler, he studied law an ...
( CDU) had exceeded his authority when his ministry had issued a
blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...
containing all wines that had been found to contain DEG, and naming the bottler in each case. The case went through all three tiers of the administrative courts, and was finally settled on October 18, 1990, when the
Federal Administrative Court of Germany The Federal Administrative Court (german: Bundesverwaltungsgericht, ) is one of the five federal supreme courts of Germany. It is the court of the last resort for generally all cases of administrative law, mainly disputes between citizens and t ...
ruled against Pieroth and found that Geißler had the right to issue the list. Pieroth's actions, which did not earn the company any sympathy with the public, were probably not meant as a measure to allow the further selling of adulterated wine, but as an attempt to put Pieroth in a position to recover money from customers who had refused to pay their outstanding bills following the scandal. Other courts had ruled in civil law proceedings that deliveries of wines found to contain DEG were a form of non-fulfillment of a purchase contract that removed any obligation to pay, but that customers still had to pay if they only suspected that a wine contained DEG, and the wine was subsequently cleared of suspicion. Thus, the legal status of the blacklist was a crucial element in the many contract disputes.


Destruction of the wine

As a consequence of the scandal, a total of 27,000,000 litres of wine (corresponding to 36 million bottles or seven months' worth of Austria's total wine exports at the pre-1985 level) had to be destroyed by the West German authorities, which had confiscated or otherwise collected the wine. Doing this in an environmentally acceptable way proved to be something of a challenge, because DEG was incompatible with
sewage treatment Sewage treatment (or domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment) is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is suitable for discharge to the surrounding envir ...
plants. In the end, the wine was disposed of and destroyed by being poured into the
oven upA double oven A ceramic oven An oven is a tool which is used to expose materials to a hot environment. Ovens contain a hollow chamber and provide a means of heating the chamber in a controlled way. In use since antiquity, they have been us ...
s of a
cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...
plant as a cooling agent instead of water.


In popular culture

The wine scandal has been the subject of many satirical references to Austrian wine, both inside Austria, in Germany and beyond, and lasting long after 1985. Shortly after the scandal, the
Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...
n bard Volker Schöbitz composed a
polka Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though associated with Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas. History Etymology The term ...
under the rhyming title ''Zum Wohl, Glykol'' - "Cheers, glycol". ''Glykol'' was also announced to be the 1985
Word of the Year The word(s) of the year, sometimes capitalized as "Word(s) of the Year" and abbreviated "WOTY" (or "WotY"), refers to any of various assessments as to the most important word(s) or expression(s) in the public sphere during a specific year. The Ge ...
in Germany. In ''
The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...
'' season 1 episode "
The Crepes of Wrath "The Crepes of Wrath" is the eleventh episode of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 15, 1990. It was written by George Meyer, Sam Simon, John Swartzwelder ...
", a reference to the scandal is made when two
Frenchmen The French people (french: Français) are an ethnic group and nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France. The French people, especially the nati ...
whom
Bart Bart is a masculine given name, usually a diminutive of Bartholomew, sometimes of Barton, Bartolomeo, etc. Bart is a Dutch and Ashkenazi Jewish surname, and derives from the name ''Bartholomäus'', a German form of the biblical name ''Barthol ...
is staying with are arrested after putting antifreeze in wine and making Bart drink it. British rock band
Half Man Half Biscuit Half Man Half Biscuit are an English rock band, formed in 1984 in Birkenhead, Merseyside. Known for their satirical, sardonic, and sometimes surreal songs, the band comprises lead singer and guitarist Nigel Blackwell, bassist and singer Neil Cr ...
reference the scandal in the song "RSVP" from their 2011 album ''
90 Bisodol (Crimond) ''90 Bisodol (Crimond)'' is the twelfth studio album by UK rock band Half Man Half Biscuit. It was released on 26 September 2011 by Probe Plus. The inner sleeve includes a modified version of the painting ''Christ's Entry into Jerusalem'' by ...
''.


See also

* *


References

{{wines Austrian wine Food safety scandals Diethylene Glycol Wine Scandal, 1985 Diethylene Glycol Wine Scandal, 1985 Austria–Germany relations Wine-related scandals Scandals in Austria 1985 disasters in Europe