The liquor produced in Corsica contains a dye, which is contrary to wine regulations, said Wednesday the Ajaccio prosecutor.

The "wine of the sea", a blue alcoholic drink produced in Corsica, is in the crosshairs of justice: the Ajaccio public prosecutor said Wednesday to have opened an investigation for "deceptive marketing practices".

This drink presents no danger to health according to the Directorate General of competition, consumption and the repression of frauds (DGCCRF), whose investigators have examined the case of Imajyne, the "wine of the sea" . But it contains a dye, which is contrary to the wine regulations according to the prosecutor Eric Bouillard. In the turquoise drink, according to the prosecutor, "we find the dye E133". In 2017, he adds, purchases of E133 were made by a former partner of the producers of this blue wine.

The new version still uses a dye

Warned by the authorities, Imajyne producers have tried to change the name of their product to "flavored cocktail". But again, the name is misleading: "for it to be a cocktail, it must be flavored," says Éric Bouillard. "The new version of Imajyne does not contain any flavoring."

Another problem: for this new version, Imajyne used another dye, the E131, also called patent blue V, which can be found for example in the "Smurfs" sweets from Haribo. It's "a dye in the form of mineral salt, it's salt!" Defends Sylvain Milanini, designer of the drink, adding that salts are useful for "stabilizing" the color that can vary "with heat and the weather".

"A very expensive wine that is not a wine"

For the DGCCRF, "all ingredients that have a coloring property are prohibited in the European regulation on additives to wines". The DGCCRF wants especially to warn the consumers who yield "for this purpose of fashion, by buying a very expensive wine (note: around 35 euros the bottle) which is not a wine". Wine, says the DGCCRF, is subject to a very strict definition: "it is the product obtained exclusively by the alcoholic fermentation, total or partial, of fresh grapes, crushed or not, or of grape musts".

"In the next vintage, there will be no coloring, even if it is mineral salts," promises Sylvain Milanini.