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Prosecutors in eastern France on Wednesday requested a winemaker accused of producing and selling fake champagne in an elaborate scam be sentenced to four years in prison, with three years of the term suspended.<\/p>\n
Didier Chopin, 56, was also requested to pay a fine of 100,000 euros on charges of fraud and theft of a protected brand name at the trial, which started on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The winemaker from the Aisne region produced and sold hundreds of thousands of fake champagne bottles for a year, between 2022 and 2023. He produced the champagne with wines from Spain and southern France, to which he added aromas and carbonised gas to make them sparkling.<\/p>\n
The total value of the fraud was estimated at several millions of euros.<\/p>\n
The prosecution at the Reims criminal court also requested that the winemaker’s wife incur a suspended prison sentence of two years and a fine of 100,000 euros on the same charges of fraud and theft of a protected brand name.<\/p>\n
The prosecution denounced “a cynical and premeditated\u00a0logic of profit,” and requested that the couple be definitively banned from running a business and from exercising any industrial or commercial professions in the champagne sector.<\/p>\n
The confiscation of all seized possessions and the destruction of all seized bottles was also requested.<\/p>\n
The couple’s holding company, SAS Chopin, was requested to pay a 300,000 euro fine on charges of embezzlement and misuse of company assets.<\/p>\n
The court is expected to announce its verdict on September 2.<\/p>\n
“This is a sad conclusion. I made a mistake, I am ruined and I have nothing else to add,” Chopin told reporters.<\/p>\n
The winemaker’s lawyer, Francis Fossier, had argued for a fully suspended prison sentence. His client had already spent “seven months” in prison in Morocco “in horrible conditions,” said Fossier.<\/p>\n
After the champagne fraud was revealed by former employees in 2023, Chopin had fled to Morocco and launched a new vegetable farming business there. He was then arrested, convicted and sentenced to prison on accusations linked to uncovered cheques.<\/p>\n
The part of the trial relating to customs violations — concerning the export of the fake champagne outside of France — has been adjourned to February 3, 2026.<\/p>\n
The winemaker also faces another legal procedure after five former employees accused him of sexual assault.<\/p>\n
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