Marshaltown

"...As a consequence of the scandal, a total of 27,000,000 litres of wine (corresponding to 36 million bottles or seven months' worth of Austria's total wine exports at the pre-1985 level) had to be destroyed by the West German authorities, which had confiscated or otherwise collected the wine. Doing this in an environmentally acceptable way proved to be something of a challenge, because DEG was incompatible with sewage treatment plants. In the end, the wine was disposed of and destroyed by being poured into the ovens of a cement plant as a cooling agent instead of water."

[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/16zmf3h/comment/k3fiixc/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/16zmf3h/comment/k3fiixc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985\_Austrian\_diethylene\_glycol\_wine\_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Austrian_diethylene_glycol_wine_scandal)

#wino

TIL that the Austrian wine industry collapsed in 1985 after it was discovered that several large wineries had been using diethylene glycol (a component of antifreeze) to make their wines sweeter.

&quot;...As a consequence of the scandal, a total of 27,000,000 litres of wine (corresponding to 36 million bottles or seven months' worth of Austria's total wine exports at the pre-1985 level) had to be destroyed by the West German authorities, which had confiscated or otherwise collected the wine. Doing this in an environmentally acceptable way proved to be something of a challenge, because DEG was incompatible with sewage treatment plants. In the end, the wine was disposed of and destroyed by being poured into the ovens of a cement plant as a cooling agent instead of water.&quot;
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/16zmf3h/comment/k3fiixc/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Austrian_diethylene_glycol_wine_scandal
wino