Man demands money back from canton after bad wine sale

A man in Ticino who bought what he thought was a bargain load of high quality wine is now demanding his money back as all the bottles were corked.

But the seller is the canton itself. 

The man secured 120 bottles of Chateau Bel Air Marquis d’Aligre from 1996 at auction. The description says the wine is ‘perfectly balanced’. 

He paid CHF 1,200 for the lot. Normally a bottle would set you back CHF 50 so he saved more than CHF 5,000. 

But as he opened one after the other – they were all bad. 

The canton took ownership of the wine after an importer went bust. 

A wine expert told the Blick newspaper that the wine was likely to have been stored badly for months on end while legal proceedings dragged on. 

A spokesman for Ticino says anything sold at auction is not guaranteed. 

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