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Also this year, the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA) will check the sale of half-fermented wines. According to the Act on viticulture and wine making, this favourite beverage can be sold from 1 August to 30 November.

Inspectors will take samples to find out whether some of the producers, carriers and sellers multiply half-fermented wine. This is how the legislation calls the situation when half-fermented wine is “baptised” with water. When an entrepreneur decides to use this illegal method, he sells fake beverage and harms consumers.

The CAFIA will also check other obligations of sellers, specifically whether they label half-fermented wine as prescribed (the fact that the product is a half-fermented wine and its producer must be mentioned) and whether they comply with the hygiene requirements (for example, when sold in PET bottles, these must be new and clean).

Consumers can also encounter a beverage that is named grape must in fermentation. What is the difference between it and half-fermented wine? Grape must in fermentation is a more general term, because it includes beverage made from grapes originating from the whole of the European Union. Half-fermented wine is then the same beverage, only the grapes are exclusively from Czech vineyards. The legislation defines grape must in fermentation and half-fermented wine as a product obtained by fermenting grape must with actual alcoholic strength higher than 1% and lower than 3/5 of the total alcoholic strength. It cannot be made from other kinds of fruits than from vine grapes and it is prohibited to add water to it.

The Inspection Authority will also check accompanying documents to identify the origin of beverages.

In past years, the CAFIA sent half-fermented wine for laboratory analyses to foreign laboratories. Last year, it used for the first time its own equipment operating on the principle of nuclear magnetic resonance and isotope analysis. This year, it will use it too.

Sanctions amounting up to hundreds of thousands of crowns were imposed by the CAFIA on entrepreneurs adulterating half-fermented wine in last two years.