1995 Vandarch Republic wine scandal
The 1995 Vandarch Republic wine scandal was an incident in which several wineries in Hollona and Diorisia were found to have illegally modified their wines using the chemical diethylene glycol, a toxic substance frequently found in antifreeze. The purpose of the addition of the diethylene glycol was to make the wines appear sweeter and more full-bodied in the style of late harvest wines to make up for a number of poor harvests of grapes in the region in the early 1990s. The wines were generally exported to Anglei wholesale to be bottled in Ænglish bottling facilities before further distribution to Levantia in general and worldwide distributors to a smaller degree. Some batches of diethylene glycol-tainted wine was deliberately blended with Ænglish wine in some bottling facilities and sold as originating in either country depending on batch.
The scandal was uncovered by wine laboratories performing quality controls on wines sold in Yonderre and immediately made headlines around the world. No such testing had been undertaken in Anglei or the Vandarch Republic. The affected wines were immediately withdrawn from the market and wine from Hollona and Diorisia was banned in several countries. A number of people involved in the scandal were sentenced to prison or heavy fines in Anglei and Hollona and Diorisia.
The short-term effect of the scandal was a complete collapse of Vandarch Republic wine exports and a total loss of reputation of the entire Holldoner and Diorisian wine industries, with significant adverse effects on the reputation of Ænglish wines as well. The long-term effect was that the Holldoner and Diorisian wine industries focused their production on other wine types than previously, primarily dry white wines instead of sweet wines, and increasingly targeted a higher market segment, but it took the them over a decade to recover. Much stricter wine laws were also enacted by the Levantine Union.
It is not known that any single death is directly contributable to the diethylene glycol-tainted wine, but it is thought to have done damage to the livers and kidneys of countless thousands.
Background
Competing against famous Levantine viticultures like the Burgundie Wine Region, Caenish wine from Urcea and Yonderian wineyards, many wines from Anglei and Hollona and Diorisia occupied a niche as affordable, even discount, offerings, with many supermarket chains having long-term contracts with Holldoner and Diorisian wineries to supply large quantities of wine at a specified quality and price level. Apparently these producers ran into problems in some weak vintages in the early 1990s 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 than previous vintage. 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. As sweetening the wines with sugar directly was illegal and strictly controlled, enterprising chemists began experimenting with alternative sweeteners including diethylene glycol.
Most of the recalled wines contained up to a few grams of diethylene glycol 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 1993 St. John's from Hollona) 48 grams per litre was detected, which meant that the consumption of a single bottle could have been lethal. Also, long-term consumption of diethylene glycol is known to damage the kidney, liver and brain. In a fortuitous twist, ethanol prevents the metabolization of diethylene glycol, which further protected consumers.
Discovery and market consequences
Based on wine fraud discovered previously in Yonderre involving illegal sweetening in Ænglish wines, laboratory testing of imported wine had intensified in Yonderre in the mid-1990s. The first wine discovered to contain diethylene glycol was a 1993 Carmadon from a supermarket in Sainte-Catherine, analysed on June 27, 1995. Differing from the previous Ænglish sweetening, which had been done with sugar, the Holldoner wine was found to contain a toxic compound and prompted an immediate declaration of a health crisis. Subsequent sampling indicated that a significant number of different bottlings were part of this dangerous adulteration scheme. Therefore, unlike cases of simple sweetening, the 1995 diethylene glycol findings immediately took the proportion of a full-scale scandal requiring action by federal authorities. On July 9, the government of Yonderre issued an official health warning against the consumption of Holldoner wines, enlarged to include Diorisian and Ænglish wines on July 12.
From mid-July onwards, it was almost impossible to sell Ænglish, Holldoner or Diorisian wine on any export market. Some countries like Yonderre and Urcea confiscated thousands of bottles and Burgundie introduced a ban on the import and sale of all Ænglish, Holldoner and Diorisian wines on July 29, 1995 which almost sparked a diplomatic incident with the Deric States. In many other countries Ænglish, Holldoner and Diorisian wines were removed from shelves by wine dealers. Not until 2008 did the export volume of wine from Hollona and Diorisia reach pre-1995 levels, and Ænglish wine exports did not recover until 2013, eighteen years after the incident, despite optimistic predictions from some quarters in Anglei that it would all be forgotten in other countries in one year's time.
Legal consequences
Lawsuits were brought against numerous actors in the wine scandal. Some wineries in Hollona and Diorisia were shut down by government mandates and their leaderships put on trial, with several facing prison time. In Anglei, owners and managers of several bottling plants were also found guilty of gross incompetence and punished similarly. Many of the adulterated wines were found to originate in Orkham in Hollona where a consulting wine chemist was prosecuted. One of the convicted Orkham winemakers, Carl Broil, proprietor of Broil Wines, committed suicide after being sentenced.
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 Hollona and Diorisia's total wine exports at the pre-1995 level) had to be destroyed by the Yonderian authorities alone which had confiscated or otherwise collected the wine. Doing this in an environmentally acceptable way proved to be something of a challenge as diethylene glycol was incompatible with sewage treatment plants. The following year, a Yonderian electric power plant in Somua announced that technicians had developed a way to produce energy through the burning of contaminated wine. Previously, the dumping of wine in the Ænglish stream Lower Beeverbrook had killed most of the trout in the river, halting further dumpings.
The legacy of the 1995 diethylene glycol scandal was stricter laws governing winemaking and systematized testing of wines ruled by the Levantine Union. The reputation of Ænglish, Holldoner and Diorisian wines remained tarnished for almost two decades, greatly hurting their exports.