UK shop could lose license over fake prosecco

A convenience store in Brighton, UK, is facing the loss of its liquor license after being found with 90 counterfeit bottles of prosecco wine.

Trading Standards officers confiscated 47 bottles of Mirella prosecco, 43 bottles of Verbano prosecco, and a single bottle of Blossom Hill white zinfandel on suspicion that they were counterfeit after inspecting the Tivoli Food and Wine shop earlier this year.

The owner of the store – Awarah Shikha – told Trading Standards that the prosecco bottles had been bought from a “white van man,” according to a report in local newspaper The Argus. Previous inspections at the shop revealed Polish lager on sale without English labelling, and three bottles of Bell’s whiskey on sale without tax stamps.

In 2018, thousands of counterfeit bottles of prosecco originating from eastern Europe – rather than the Italian region around Venice and Trieste that is the only area able to use the term – were seized in Coventry by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

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