Will the truth ever be told?

According to the "official story," the truth has been told in the unfolding saga of the Brunello brouhaha. 

I quote extensively from Vinowire, the joint just-the-facts-ma'am project of Jeremy Parzen and Franco Ziliani:

Montalcino producers are not suspected of using Apulian wine in the production of Brunello, said the Siena prosecutor’s office on Friday.

... Siena prosecutor Nino Calabrese issued the following statement Friday to WineNews.it.

“I am abstemious,” said Calabrese. “I do not read newspapers. I prefer literature and I do not issue statements to the press.... There is no truth, however, to what has been reported by certain members of the media [Ziliani] regarding the use of wines from the region of Apulia in the production of Brunello.”

According the the website, the statement was issued exclusively to WineNews.it.

First of all, Nino sounds like a pompous ass.  Secondly, he sounds like a mighty disingenuous one.  I'd go so far as to say "bullshit artist," which is itself a gentler way of saying "liar", but you know my sense of propriety.

As I and several commenters on mondosapore have already remarked, it's a time-honored practice to goose the wines of cooler and, more to the point, smaller and more prestigious regions with juice from the sunny south.  The shocking thing about this scandal seems to be the large percentage of producers who have been engaging in it in Brunelloland.  A Sienese sommelier that I know through blogging has told given me a long list of big names of the likely suspects, and one of the Frescobaldis was recently arrested for this very transgression. 

I was chatting over wine at Blue Ribbon Bar last evening -- a terrific little place at the corner of Carmine and Downing Streets in the West Village -- with none other than Dr. Parzen himself.  We traded some off-the-record tales of those parts, and he professed his astonishment that no one else in the States was reporting on it or at least discussing it.  Even the Italian papers, no models of journalistic adventurousness, are starting to bring more to light.  It does look like it's going to have legs, this story. 

By the way, Jeremy and I had some delicious snacks and several glasses of Thierry Puzelat's Pineau D'Aunis.  Lovely juice imported by Louis/Dressner.

Comments

[Fredric Koeppel]

a prosecutor who doesn't read newspapers????? impossible.....

[TH]

He just sounds ridiculous, doesn't he?

[Center for Wine Origins]

This story does highlight, however, the importance of name protection in the wine industry. Regardless of the validity in Calabrese's statement, wine consumers have a right to know where their wines truly come from, as a national wine poll released last week says.
Wine producers need to be truthful as to where their wines originated from so that consumers can then make informed choices about what they choose to buy. Allowing for this type of misrepresentation in the wine industry to continue will just further the ongoing struggles for brands in name protection.