BRUNELLOGATE - latest wine scandal!

Latest article from Wine Spectator:

Brunello Under Fire
Italian authorities impound wines as part of an investigation
Jo Cooke
Posted: Thursday, April 03, 2008

The normally peaceful Tuscan hilltop town of Montalcino, home of one of Italy's prized red wines, is currently in a state of turmoil, as Italy's financial police, the Guardia di Finanza, have seized several top producers' remaining stocks of Brunello di Montalcino 2003, on suspicion that the wines may contain grapes other than Sangiovese.

Police, under the direction of Siena's public prosecutor, Nino Calabrese, have so far blocked shipment of Brunellos from Castelgiocondo (owned by Marchesi de' Frescobaldi), Pian delle Vigne (owned by Antinori) and Castello Banfi. According to local press reports, wines from Argiano have been impounded as well. Furthermore, the police block applies to all subsequent vintages still aging in barrel or bottle in the cellars. According to a spokesman for Castello Banfi, the winery has 10 days to appeal the decision, after which the magistrate has 10 days to respond.

The police, under the direction of Calabrese, started their investigation last November, according to local reports, primarily to confirm that the local growers' consortium, the Consorzio di Brunello di Montalcino, was correctly monitoring Brunello production according to DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) regulations. These stipulate that Brunello must contain only Sangiovese grapes from vineyards officially registered with the consortium.

In a recent press release, the consortium said that a three-year-long investigation of the vineyards, from 2004 to 2007, uncovered 42 acres that did not conform to DOCG rules—around 1 percent out of the 4,118 total acres of Brunello vineyards. That spurred the Guardia di Finanza to launch an exhaustive examination of all documents relating to Brunello production at the estates involved, sequestering the wines if they discovered any apparent irregularities.

According to Renzo Cotarella, in-house enologist for all of Antinori's estates, including Pian delle Vigne in Montalcino, the anomalies that are attracting the attention of the police could be explained in various ways.

"In a Sangiovese vineyard designated for the production of Brunello," he said, "there may be a few vines that may or may not be Sangiovese, which have been there since the vineyard was planted." He suggested that estates that produce a Toscana IGT, using varieties other than Sangiovese, might also find themselves in the investigator's sights. "We have a 2-hectare plot of Merlot, which we use in our Rosso Toscana IGT."

Castelgiocondo, another of Montalcino's larger estates involved in the investigation, produces Brunello, Rosso di Montalcino, a Sangiovese-Merlot Toscana IGT called Luce and a Merlot Toscana IGT called Lamaione. "Whenever we have discovered dubious vines in our Brunello vineyards," said Lamberto Frescobaldi, the estate's director of viticulture and winemaker, "we have informed the consortium and used the grapes in our IGT Luce."

A spokesman for Banfi denied that their 2003 Brunellos—about 35,000 cases worth—had been impounded because of vines other than Sangiovese in their vineyards. Instead, he said the problem was supposed irregularities in vineyard yields. He also questioned the timing of the investigation appearing in the press, just as wineries are meeting with potential customers from around the world in Verona at Vinitaly, Italy's most important wine fair. "For some producers, this is their best chance to sell their wines," said spokesman Lars Leicht. "Tell me this isn't political."

So far the public prosecutor's office has refused to comment except for a brief press release, issued on March 28, stating categorically that the police were not investigating the possibility that Brunello wines from 2003 onwards included grapes from Puglia. This was to quell a specific rumor, one of many, that was gaining ground in local press coverage. Papers in Florence and Siena have been filled with speculation, dubbing the scandal "Brunellopoli” (Brunellosville).

Stefano Campatelli, director of the Brunello consortium, currently promoting the wines of Montalcino at Vinitaly, said, “I can't comment on the current state of the investigation, as I have not received any communication from the public prosecutor's office. I can only hope that this is all cleared up quickly."

Cotarella said that if the problem were not concluded within the next two to three months, Pian delle Vigne may decide to declassify the Brunello 2003 to Toscana IGT, in order to be able to sell it.

"There's a bit of an air of a witch hunt at the moment," said Cotarella. "The problem is that, however this finishes, it will be bad for Brunello, for Montalcino and for Italian wine in general."

June 2008
As I go to Montalcino twice a week with my tours, I have to admit that I'm a little "grossed out" by this whole Brunello scandal business.

While I feel I must inform my guests, I'm at the same time completely calm about it as I have never really wanted to take my guests to the vineyards currently questioned by the authorities.
Furthermore, I have a feeling that the whole scandal might be political - and this is another good reason for me to be a mere observer...
However, being a firm believer in good farming and excellent wines, I can only recommend to any of you to search out small farmers' wines - that may be hard to find, but worth the search - as the small farmer puts nothing at stake apart from own reputition - and in most cases honorable in all phases of agriculture!!!

Continues from same article...



Help from the south
There is an ingrained culture in Tuscany of blending stronger, deeper wines - il mosto meridionale - from southern Italy, a practice that was particularly necessary when poor quality Sangiovese clones dominated the vineyards of Chianti in the 1960s and 1970s, for example.
All of Montalcino’s biggest wineries in terms of volume either own, or have (quite legitimate) trading relationships, with vineyards, wine producers or bulk cooperatives outside the Brunello zone. All are under investigation. One has admitted to fraudulent yields but not falsifying wine (this is sophistry). Two others are waiting for the investigators’ findings. One has withdrawn a Brunello from the market without admitting any wrongdoing. One other seems now to be in the clear.
Brunello’s Consorzio was supposed to police the region’s wines. For less than what the Consorzio is paying a Milanese PR company to conduct a damage-limitation exercise, it could pay to have every one of its members’ wines analysed.
According to Geoff Taylor of Corkwise and the UK’s leading wine analyst, a multi-spectrum analysis of wines using atomic absorption could determine where the grapes in the blend have come from ie if wines from outside the Montalcino zone have been blended in. “All vineyard soils contain around 20 to 30 trace metals, like selenium or molybdenum for example,” says Taylor. “The patterns change according to which region you are in. First you’d establish what the pattern of trace metals was in wines made only from grapes grown in Montalcino.
Then you’d analyse wines from any regions outside Montalcino which you think have been used as blending material. Wines labelled as Brunello falling outside the statistical pattern of the soils from which they are supposed to have been grown on can thus be identified and matched to where they might really have been sourced from.”
I have seen tankers from Southern Italy’s more prolific wine regions in Montalcino. As only the zone’s largest two dozen wineries have the tank space to deal with tankersful of wine - and as all of them protest their innocence - all should welcome being subjected to the trace metal test. It takes less than seven days and costs less than £150 per wine. According to Taylor the trace metal test is more accurate than nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, or NMR, which analyses wines and vineyards for isotopes Carbon 12 and Carbon 13 and costs £600 per wine. NMR is favoured by the EU and the Italian authorities who have invested vast sums on the system but the way the database was constructed may be flawed. “If I was a wine producer I would confidently challenge its accuracy if asked to appear in court,” says Taylor.
Wineries producing Brunello but growing grapes other than Sangiovese should undergo a different analysis. “It’s harder to check if different grapes from exactly the same site have been blended together,” says Taylor. “Tests exist but don’t stack up.” This suggests that the story of the Montalcino winemaker who claims to have sent a 95% Merlot red for analysis and found it certified as a 100% Sangiovese Brunello may be more than an urban myth. As someone who blends other grapes into Brunello, needless to say he was delighted.
Less fortunate - or even more stupid - are those being investigated for passing off vineyards containing French grapes as Sangiovese/Brunello in planting registers. Over a decade ago they had been advised by the same wine consultant - one of Italy’s most famous - to plant Bordeaux grapes instead of Sangiovese to make ‘SuperTuscan’ reds which were then all the rage. When the market for Sangiovese/Brunello picked up, both vineyards lacked Sangiovese, so passing off other grapes as Sangiovese in planting registers made sense.
This scam was supposed to have been closed from 2004 by the Erga Omnes investigation checking vineyards for non-Sangiovese vines. Only 1% of vineyards in the DOCG zone were said to be fraudulent but the checks were risible. I am not an ampelographer but I saw non-Sangiovese vineyards declared as such openly being regrafted to Sangiovese in the zone as late as spring 2007. There are even reports that vineyard managers bribed suppliers of baby vines to pretend they were supplying ‘Sangiovese/Brunello’ when in fact the vines were Merlot, Cabernet or whatever. Ignorance is no defence as vineyard managers must have the technical competence to be able to identify easily Sangiovese vines.
The checks appear to have been so well telegraphed in advance you had to be exceptionally stupid to get caught. One of those who has been indicted for alleged vineyard fraud styled himself as one of the most vociferous defenders of the ‘Brunello is a 100% Sangiovese wine and should remain so’ concept. His exceptional hubris - if you can’t be honest about your vines, are you really going to be honest about your wines? - was the straw that broke the camel’s back for one fellow producer of genuinely 100% Sangiovese Brunello who shopped him to the authorities.
That’s how Brunellopoli started. In late 2007 the winery he administers was sealed off. A school-type notebook with details of how much Merlot, Cabernet and so on was going into the Brunello was discovered during a search, as was a hidden cellar of trucked in wines.
1888 and all that
Part of Brunello’s ‘myth’ is it’s an historic wine region. It isn’t. Burgundy monks were making Clos de Vougeot in the Middle Ages. Claret bottles labelled as Château Haut-Brion were being swigged in London in the mid-17th century. In the late 1970s, what is today Brunello’s largest producer was still trying to grow sweet fizzy Muscat whites. As a red wine region this is a young and far from world-class zone still feeling its way. Can you make great wines here? Yes, but you’ll need three things.
1) Good clones of Sangiovese Grosso. Yes, you read that right. Sangiovese is a clonal nightmare and tends to “piss” in its youth. So old vines help, but under 1% of Montalcino’s Sangiovese was planted pre-1960.
2) Good sites, above 300 metres and on the zone’s oldest (geologically speaking) soils. This probably rules out a third of the DOCG zone. Wines I have tasted from such sites made in the golden decade of the 1950s and definitely from Sangiovese are like top Burgundy: pale in colour but powerfully, divertingly flavoured.
3) Good farming. Brunello vineyards often suffer heavy, cement-like soils. Producers have been tempted to follow the dogma of the 1970s espoused by north Italian wine universities which saw ploughing the rows frequently as the surest way of allowing vine roots to breathe. Add in weedkillers sprayed under the vines and you have the weed-free look Tuscan winemakers think tourists prefer. This should change.
Constant ploughing burns all the organic matter (the carbon which worms love) out of the soil and means vines stress more easily as they can’t hydrate or feed as well as they’d like in hot or wet weather. Some wine writers insist that vines need to be stressed for quality. They don’t, any more than wine writers need having their fingers cut off to produce better articles.
The organic approach of building soil health using compost, sowing cover crops like grasses to prevent erosion and tractor compaction has produced two of the better wines I have tasted in this zone [neither of whose producers do I consult to - see disclaimer]. But organics is no guarantee of good practice, especially in wet years (like 2008) when at least one bio grower appears to have had no problem spraying banned anti-rot products without offering to forfeit their official organic status.
I cannot accept there exists a single person involved in wine in any serious capacity in Brunello di Montalcino who can claim to be totally unaware either that fraud was being committed here by the least scrupulous producers or that the rumours of fraud were not at least credible.
Even smaller growers I have dined with and whose Brunellos I like have admitted that “I have a few rows of Cabernet” or “I blend in a bit of Colorino from my uncle…” Several export managers have admitted to me that they knew the winemakers would alter Brunellos to make them easier to sell - by adding a bit of Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. They would never directly ask for this to be done but they would drop hints about the need to ‘internationalise’ the Brunello.
These same export managers admit to abiding by the “don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy. “I just don’t want to know what goes on in there [the winery],” said one export manager to me in July. I haven’t named any wineries - good or bad - in this article as to my mind they are all in it together. That’s why all the producers - tricksters and purists - will have to work together to dig the region out of this hole.
Imposing a ban on Brunellos made from vines younger than ten years old and estate wineries growing anything other than Sangiovese might be a start. But imposing more rules on Italy’s unruliest wine region might even prove the biggest mistake of all.
Disclaimer:
I am paid as a biodynamic consultant to an estate in the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG zone. I am in charge of 10% of the vineyards: a trial biodynamic plot of a field-blended vineyard, one of the oldest in the zone (there are 2% white grapes of an unknown varietal; around 5-10% Colorino; and the rest is Sangiovese. The vines were planted in the 1950s. Around 40% of the vines are missing and are being replaced).
My main job is making biodynamic compost: biodynamic cow manure + winery waste + chipped prunings from the estate’s olive trees + certified organic municipal compost + the six biodynamic compost preparations. This compost is also now being used in other vineyards on the estate, the initial trial having been deemed a success.
Cover cropping, herbal tea sprays and lunar pruning are other useful practices that have been ’stolen’ from biodynamics to be used on the rest of the estate. None of the vines are certified organic/biodynamic at this time. The general manager is insistent on allowing me no access to the winery. He is currently being investigated for Brunellopoli”.