another wine scandal

[adriatica]

well in fact two...the cheap wine here is in trouble as the espresso brings out a feature article about what goes into it... have not red it yet but the news progs this morning were all into the details...

it follows last nights news that sveral producers of a DoC wine have been using other grapes in percentages outside limits..... i think this is just pushing problems a little bit too far... and has no health issues...

the cheap wine scandal is a bit different ... and am not sure yet if they are talking just italian wines or any of the imported stuff as well... but it reminds of the long past great wine scandal here...and if it gains momentum it will be sad for an industry that has worked hard to rebuild its reputaion and world sales

[Gala Placidia]

Here is an article on this topic:

Vino adulterato e scandali alimentari sintomo di un paese malato · NEWSFOOD.com

Really something to worry about....

[sueflauto]

Ta for that.

Sometimes of course DOC producers in the past have used outside limit percentages of grapes to improve the wine - such as omitting certain grapes in Chianti in favour of Sangiovese, or adding Cabernet - but the honest ones just called their wines VdT and still were able to charge a packet..

So now we have both adulterated wine and "EVO" Oil - what next?

[adriatica]

sue
the minor of the two scandals running at the moment is the one where several cantinas have introduced varieties of grapes that should not be present... its basically an economic scandal as people that pay large amounts of money for specialist wines are being cheated and from memory it involves wine of the 2003 vintage of a certain area see link below

Vino Wire Five Brunello producers implicated in fraudulent wine scandal reports Italian daily La Repubblica.

the other which is by definition here more nasty is the fact that once again italian wine producers in 6 regions are making wine with additives that include acid for cleaning walls... god knows why but the link to the investigation is below
Benvenuti a Velenitaly | L'espresso

not only can you find the story but also the comments from italians... the demand here now is to name and shame the coops that are producing this cocktail basically of poison...

what is to me the greatest waste of this scandal is that it is now very few years ago that the italian wine industry fell into worldwide dis repute over another infamous story of this type which involved twenty deaths....., that's the old one below
The Dregs of a Deadly Scandal - TIME

now what is going to happen is that the ordinary wine producer here is going to suffer once again from this latest news... and once again it will have repercussions for those that produce high quality wine as well...

once again the symbol made in italy being sold out for a few thousand euro by coops run by criminals that set up these tax free operations... make a quick killing, never come to trial and ruin peoples lives that are in general honest producers...

funny enough on here some time back someone was asking about planting vines and trying to get into the wine producing business... my advice would be go to australia or california or dare i mention it even france... here the criminals ruin everything...

if anything good can be said about all this it seems to me that its the fact that italians are investigating and publishing what used to be covered up.... that there are more honest people here now that are not prepared to sit back and let political or criminal oragnistaions hide everything.... and the espresso leads the way in that what might be termed true journalistic investigation that for many years never existed here and that this forum and its widespread interest in italy and italian life... its members that do have concerns here about the honesty or lack of also help to bring to the forefront what was hidden before... and now can be opened up to a wider audience... these criminals rely on things being kept quite... of no consequences ... now with home grown investigation..... and places like this bringing to light mal practice in its own small way ....things are going to have to change.... for me anyway this forum is a font of knowledge for all things italian good and bad...

[Gala Placidia]

Cloned spaghetti....

PS Ooops! This was a reply to Sueflauto's post...

[Violetta]

Originally Posted by adriatica

now what is going to happen is that the ordinary wine producer here is going to suffer once again from this latest news... and once again it will have repercussions for those that produce high quality wine as well.....

But this is so true. Talking to a couple of neighbours who are very small producers around here they are genuinely afraid of being tarred with the same brush as the big boys over at Montalcino. For are tourists in particular going to bother differentiating between certain producers of Brunello and the rest, or will all Tuscan wines be merely written off as bogus? This is going to hurt a lot of people who arguably don't have the financial cushioning that the Banfi's of this world enjoy.