Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Sunday 11 December 2011

#Campogate: the Asevin 'contract' - another spoof document

Page 1 of the Asevin 'contract': 11.11.2011
Page 4 of the Asevin 'contract' – only one signature


Pancho Campo and his Wine Academy of Spain* toiled all week to produce a statement. On Monday 5th December there was an announcement on Facebook that there would be a statement within 48 hours. Despite all the fanfare and grandstanding nothing appeared until around midday on Saturday 10th with the publication of a lengthy piece of self-serving bluster by the Dubai fugitive. 

Campo has chosen to to support his threadbare case with some spoof documents. The DO Vinos de Madrid document is the first example – see here. Then there is the so called Asevin 'contract', which like the Madrid paper is not a legal document at all. Page 4 above shows just one signature – Juan Antonio Ruiz Jimenéz – with no indication of where this 'contract' was signed. The space for Melissa Butler (Mrs Campo) remains empty as does Page 5. Did the normally vociferously supportive, Melissa, decide that there was no way she could bring herself to sign such tosh? Amazing that some people in Spain once thought they were afraid of Campo!

Page 2 of the spoof  Asevin 'contract'


 Page 3 of the Asevin 'contract'

The Asevin 'contract' another missing Melissa Butler signature on Page Five

Pancho Campo MW and The Wine Academy of Spain have released their long awaited statement here          


* The Wine Academy LLC is registered at Watergate One, 1111 Gulfstream, Sarasota, Florida, USA.    

3 comments:

Chris Kissack said...

Jim

It's not clear to me what's going on here. Do you think these documents have been drawn up *after* the event as some sort of post-hoc method of trying to legitimise the dealings made by Pancho? Or do you suggest they are entirely false - I ask because of your use of the word 'spoof'?

Have you had a full translation of the documents?

I think you need to link up you "see here" to the Vinos de Madrid post.

Chris

Jim's Loire said...

Chris. The DO Madrid document was certainly drawn up long after the event. I suspect at the end of November around the time that the bodegas were suddenly told that Jay Miller would taste their wines – given less than two days notice.

The Asevin document is dated 11.11.2011, whereas the series of emails were from October and tell a very different story involving not just Asevin but Spanish government officials.

Neither document is a legal document for reasons explained and Asevin is not a contract as there is only one signature.

I don't have a full translation for the documents.

Will sort out the link.

Cheers
Jim

Anonymous said...

Here´s a comment from Mike Steinberger´s blog:


Antonio David permalink

December 10, 2011

Dear Mike,
Another one from Spain here too. We as winemakers, winery owners, vintners, enologists need a voice to be heard and Pancho provided us all with paid access to Mr. Miller. He said, they said, we said doesn’t matter, it is our bottom line and that is why we paid access to Mr. Miller. My wine is not yet rated and not imported into the US. If I don’t secure some way of having the Big US Critics to discover my wines and write about them, I will never export. The amount of money we all paid Campo was obscene, but what choice do we have? None. Questions on the expenses and how the money was spent? We were told a large portion of the money went to Pancho for arranging the trip, airlines, transfers, hotels, meals, video, and publication in The Wine Academy of Spain portals. I hope Mr Campo gets run out of Spain as he is nothing more than a vagabond. While I struggle to pay for my tractor repairs, Pancho if flaunting around in his Ferrari, having lavish 50th birthday & anniversary parties in Marbella (all on the social media to see), and acting like a jet set multimillionaire. Fuera Pancho Fuera! He has no shame and no place among the good people of Spain. Any winery supporting him now are only doing so because they are holding on to a thread of hope that he still has some tricks up his sleeves to sell them.

Gracias for letting me speak, Antonio David