[wine] Brownello Montacino ??

Or maybe Brunello Parkerchino? Turlello Montelicino? April 23, 2008 ‘Bolt From the Blue’ on a Tuscan Red By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO MONTALCINO, Italy THE vineyards that surround this medieval hill town and the wine they produce have been a source of local pride for years. But lately they’ve also been a source of embarrassment. Since late last year a prosecutor has been investigating whether some of the major producers of the wine — brunello di Montalcino — have been violating the laws that determine whether their product can bear that name, the most prestigious among all Tuscan wines. The prosecutor has impounded more than a million bottles from some of the most prominent Italian winemakers — including Antinori and Frescobaldi — while he determines whether they used unapproved techniques or grapes other than brunello, the local name for sangiovese, supposedly to give their idiosyncratic wine a broader international appeal. “It was a bolt from the blue, it threw us all off,” said Fabrizio Bindocci, the agronomist for Tenuta Il Poggione, known for its traditional style, and which he says is not being investigated. He spoke as he maneuvered an S.U.V. along a worn dirt path lined by rows of gnarly brunello vines just beginning to show shoots. “It makes you feel badly,” he said, “because you realize that the world is not what you thought it was.” The news of the investigation, and wilder, unfounded rumors about what was involved, broke earlier this year in local papers. But international wine blogs began publicizing it a few weeks ago just before the opening of Vinitaly, Italy’s largest wine trade fair. Brunello makers spent most of the fair fielding panicky calls from importers. “Italians are masters at damaging their own interests,” Montalcino’s mayor, Maurizio Buffi, said wryly. The woes of Montalcino come on top of other scandals that have called into question the purity of some of Italy’s most famous products. On Monday, Italian police said extra virgin olive oil from seven factories had been doctored with sunflower and soybean oil. There have been concerns that mozzarella might have been contaminated because of illegal garbage dumping around Naples, and adulterated wine is said to have been found in several regions. So any rumor about brunello seemed believable. At first there were reports that winemakers had been indicted, that truckloads of cheap grapes had been trucked in from Mafia-controlled vineyards in the south, that adulterated wine had also been found in Montalcino. “It was difficult to see wine written about in the same way you’d write about terrorism,” said Filippo Chia, whose family has made brunello at Castello Romitorio for the past two decades. (He, too, said his wine is not being investigated.) “That’s not in tune with our world, which is not a world of shock and awe but subtleties.” But even the more subtle contours of reality in this case are stunning. While nobody has been indicted, the prosecutor, Nino Calabrese, is considering commercial fraud charges that carry maximum sentences of up to six years imprisonment. Conviction could also lead to expulsion from the Consorzio del Vino Brunello. That group, for more than 40 years, has overseen production by the area’s 250 brunello makers to make sure, among other things, that they used nothing but sangiovese grapes, grown in vineyards on which no more than 80 hectoliters of fruit are harvested on every hectare, and that they aged their wine at least two years in oak barrels. In a telephone interview from his office in Siena, Mr. Calabrese, the province’s chief prosecutor and a self-professed teetotaler, would only say his office had impounded the wine, from the 2003 vintage that went on sale in January, until he finds whether the winemakers had violated the brunello rules. “It would seem that some people used different grapes to make the wine more tasty,” he said. Why would anyone want to use unapproved grapes? “Very simple,” said Franco Ziliani, the Italian wine expert who helped spread the word about the scandal on his blog, vinowire.com. “Adding cabernet or merlot, which are more pleasant to the American palate, makes for a more appealing wine for the average consumer as well as critics.” The American market, Mr. Ziliani said, is among the most lucrative and prestigious. Merlot in particular, he said, “makes sangiovese’s acidic tannins rounder, and more ready to drink,” and these grapes give these wines a darker color. Such wines regularly score in the high 90s with American critics, which usually translates into big sales. He and others believe winemakers in the region have been doctoring their brunello for much of the past decade. Accusations like this would seem familiar to winemakers in many areas of Europe. In Burgundy and Rioja, Barolo and Montalcino, qualities that have made local wines great, that have given their names international cachet, may not be the qualities that conform to international tastes. Some winemakers in those areas have changed their techniques to make less traditional wines with greater appeal in the export market — softer, fruitier, richer. It’s often rumored that some winemakers go further, actually breaking the rules under which they were allowed to use the famous names. Some argue that a less pure brunello could actually be a better wine, but that it just should not be called a brunello. This was the origin of the famed super-Tuscan wines, which use non-traditional grapes like cabernet sauvignon. “There’s been a debate on whether to add other grapes, but it’s been hypothetical,” said Tiziana Frescobaldi, director of communications for the family firm, whose brunello production — some 200,000 bottles at their Castelgiocondo estate — was impounded by the prosecutor. At Frescobaldi, she insisted, “We don’t want the rules to change; our brunello is 100 percent sangiovese.” Lawyers for the grower have asked a court to release the wine, and she said they were waiting for a response. Closing ranks, local wine growers argue that the regulations allow for a wide range of differences among individual wines. Their vineyards are spread over different soils and altitudes, and producers use a variety of techniques for aging and bottling. Even climate change has had an impact, they say. “That’s the beauty of brunello, all its varying facets,” said Patrizio Cencioni, the brunello consortium’s vice president. Mr. Cencioni said the group has tightened oversight since 2004 and approved the procedures used by most of the producers being investigated. “The prosecutors are investigating on the basis of information that’s different than what we found when we examined the vineyards,” he said. Renzo Cotarella, managing director of Antinori, which has had around 150,000 bottles of its Pian delle Vigne impounded, said his company would emerge unblemished, though the media attention has already hurt them. “In Italy, unfortunately,” he said, “you’re guilty until proven innocent, which I am certain we are.” Even winemakers who have not been implicated want the scandal resolved. “The credibility of all brunello is at risk," Mr. Bindocci of Tenuta Il Poggione said. “We shouldn’t all be penalized for the errors of others.” But there are fears that Italy’s notoriously slow justice system will drag this out for months. While the consortium voted two weeks ago to preserve existing rules, some winemakers under investigation say they will abandon the brunello name for the 2003 vintage. Argiano, one of the estates under investigation, said on Monday that it would declassify the 80,000 bottles that the prosecutor has impounded, charging 10 percent less than their normal price of $65 to $70. “Our decision isn’t because we feel guilty,” said Stéphane Schaeffer, Argiano’s sales manager, who flew to the United States this week to tell customers that the company had done nothing wrong. “We can’t wait passively for months. We need to be on the market.” The wine will be labeled Il Duemilatre di Argiano (Argiano’s 2003). Mr. Schaeffer said they decided against calling it Il Castigato, the chastised. Beyond the individual winemakers, the local economy as a whole stands to suffer. Montalcino is a one-industry town and winemaking gives work to more than half of its 5,200 residents. Tourism brings in about 2 million visitors, the mayor said. “I hope this is all resolved as quickly as possible because the territory risks serious economic damage,” the mayor said. There could be layoffs soon, said Lars Leicht, a spokesman for the American-owned Castello Banfi, who said prosecutors have locked up around 600,000 bottles to investigate whether their vineyard yields were too high. Still, Mr. Ziliani, the critic, is outraged by the reaction of many winemakers. “Even though honest growers might be upset that the rules have been broken, they’re also irritated — and this is very Italian — that it’s interfering with their business,” he said. “I think most producers in Montalcino would have preferred that things went on as before — with some companies selling real brunello, and others not — because in any case brunello sells.” -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *