That Little Green Stamp Atop French Wines???

With today’s technology I’m sure the tax stamp does more than just indicate that a required “special tax” was paid. I’m sure with hologram and now digital stamps one can actually “track” the bottles of wine. Just one way to combat “illicit” trade (smuggling and/or counterfeiting).
Salute

Victor,
Don't quite understand that statement. Are you suggesting that they are actually doing that to fight "illicit" trade? Or using RFID technology on those green tax stamps?
Or are you just suggesting the potential is there?
Tom

I thought RFID tags were on boxes or pallets not individual items?

[David M. Bueker]

With today’s technology I’m sure the tax stamp does more than just indicate that a required “special tax” was paid. I’m sure with hologram and now digital stamps one can actually “track” the bottles of wine. Just one way to combat “illicit” trade (smuggling and/or counterfeiting).
Salute

Considering that the stamps are just thin stickers (I have pried off a few) that is highly unlikely.

I thought RFID tags were on boxes or pallets not individual items?

Yup...in most of the applications today, they are on boxes & pallets. But they are on some individual items
like high-end electronics, nuclear warheads, and such. There's no reason they couldn't be imbedded under wine capsules
or such. In principle, anyway.
Tom

I thought RFID tags were on boxes or pallets not individual items?

Yup...in most of the applications today, they are on boxes & pallets. But they are on some individual items
like high-end electronics, nuclear warheads, and such. There's no reason they couldn't be imbedded under wine capsules
or such. In principle, anyway.
Tom

Do they track them with tiny little black French helicopters?

Seriously, technology makes it possible if they wanted to do it. Question is, why would they do it? Does it make economic sense?

Does it make economic sense?

Depends on the wine. I believe that RFID tags are still 15-40 cents a piece. Seems silly to add that to a $6-10 bottle of wine but if its Mouton or Yquem maybe it makes sense.

Does it make economic sense?

Depends on the wine. I believe that RFID tags are still 15-40 cents a piece. Seems silly to add that to a $6-10 bottle of wine but if its Mouton or Yquem maybe it makes sense.

That's just the cost of the RFID tag itself, though, Tom. Factor in the re-tooling on the line, building and managing all that it takes to set up and maintain a system for effective tracking (as in, how/when/where the tracking is done, and for what reason it is done), and you're getting a little closer to the true expense of an RFID tag system.

I don't quite understand Eric's comment about the N not signifying a negociant wine. Eric, are you saying that negociants buy bottled wine from recoltants in suspension of duty and then put their own capsules on it top sell in France? Why would they do that?

A lot of négociants (especially in Bordeaux) are more wine merchants than négociants. The problem is the french définition of négociant. If you are not an "agriculteur" officialy, which mainly means that your social security is a special agency called MSA, whatever you do with wine or grape, you'll be considered by the french administration as a négociant. Most of the US producers would be considered as négociants in France. And most the distributors too!!!

Eric: So the biggest business product in France is bureaucracy?

Hoke,

Its been a LONG time since I paid any attention to what's going on with RFID but back in the day WalMart and the DoD were the big gorillas pushing it at the pallet level. WalMart then wanted to have it at the item level but I'm not sure where that went. I remember privacy groups being strongly opposed to that.

All that said, a small wine shop certainly isn't going to spend money on RFID hardware, software and services. Most of the cost is on the wholesale/retail side, I believe, not with the producers themselves. That is, a producer doesn't have to invest in all the HW, SW and services if he doesn't want to (or isn't pushed to do so by someone like WalMart).

Eric: So the biggest business product in France is bureaucracy?

By far, my friend. By far.
But frankly, as soon as the people in charge are nice and smart enough, this is something I can live with. Question of culture and education, I guess.
Anyway, when I see how hard it is to find people who want to work in the vineyard, I guess bureaucracy is the future...

From the very beginning when man first started minting things like coins and stamps “anti-counterfeiting” measures had to be taken into consideration.
Take stamps (both postage and revenue), at first it was probably things like “special” and “unique” formula dyes, then as craftsman (tool and die makers) got better at their craft certain areas of the stamps could be made raised and others lower. Even the machines used to put the perforations on the edges of the stamps (size, shape, spacing, and number of perforations on the side edges and top edges of the stamp) could be altered making the stamps “unique”. Then of course there was the “watermark”. Two almost identical looking stamps, one can be worth (to a collector) only $10 the other maybe thousands of dollars.

Salute