There have been nine deaths in the Chinese city of Guangzhou recently in connection with poisoning from drinking fake wine. The issue of fake wine is impossible for Chinese officials to ignore, prompting the State Administration of Industry and Commerce to conduct a random inspection of famous brand alcohol and imported wine sold in restaurant and hotels. The results show that more than half of the products are fake.

According to Xinhua.net, the Chinese Industrial and Commercial department conducted a random inspection on famous brand alcohol and imported wine sold in hotels and restaurants in the cities of Beijing, Shenyang, Zhenzhou and Chengdu. Only 44.4 percent of the products were real, and unqualified sellers of alcohol were at 38.9 percent.

Officials from China’s Business Administration Department said that unqualified hotels and restaurants are mainly middle and high class. Some hotels lack a strict system for checking their stock of wine, and even replenish it from individual sellers.

The unpredictable and ambiguous system of buying and distributing wine is difficult to investigate and has made it extremely easy to mix fake wine and real wine for resale to unsuspecting customers.