Brunello's reputation questioned as producers face fraud inquiry

Italy's most celebrated red wine, which can change hands for hundreds of pounds per bottle and has long been regarded as one of the handful of Italian vintages that can compete with France's best, received a disastrous blow to its image this week with the news that several top producers are under investigation for fraud.

Brunello, produced in the Tuscan village of Montalcino, was the first Italian wine to become a DOC wine before it gained the most prestigious DOCG status, and has gained a large and loyal clientele in the United States, which takes a quarter of exports.

Described by experts as "a wine of power and finesse", the best Brunello ranks with top French wines from the likes of Château Margaux and Château Pétrus. In 1999 a Biondi-Santi 1955 Brunello was the only Italian wine to be selected by a panel of experts as one of the best wines of the century.

But investigators from Siena claim that half a dozen producers have been cutting corners. L'Espresso news weekly, which broke the story yesterday, claims that around 20 firms are suspected of "commercial fraud".

A true Brunello must be made only from grapes cloned from the Sangiovese variety identified by the pioneering Montalcino vintner Clemente Santi in the 19th century. But the investigators believe that some producers were mixing 15 per cent of other grapes, including Merlot, Cabernet and Sauvignon, with the cloned Sangiovese.

None of the producers has yet been charged, but investigating magistrates have blocked the bottling of 2003 vintage Brunello by three of the most important producers, Antinori, Frescobaldi and Argiano, and quarantined 10 vineyards and 600,000 bottles belonging to Castello Banfi. Top managers at two firms have received formal warnings of impending investigation.

The managing director of Castello Banfi, Enrico Viglierchio, broke the news that his company was under the magnifying glass at Vinitaly, the annual trade fair of Italy's wine industry, which meets in Verona. Angrily, he told journalists: "I'm upset by the methods used in this investigation. They acted on the basis of clues and data that remain to be validated. If somebody has done wrong, which remains to be demonstrated, it's right that they pay for it. But the grave danger is that the entire community will pay for it. With the vineyards under quarantine the activity of the whole firm is blocked, and at the end of the day the jobs of our 400 employees are at risk."

Yesterday the EU stepped in. The spokeswoman for the EU health commissioner Nina Papadoulaki said: "We have asked the Italian authorities for more information."

Although the alleged adulteration of Brunello poses no risk to health, if the charges are proved they could cause devastating damage to the label's reputation. The prestigious wine could be stripped of its DOC and DOCG certificates and reduced to a humble "indicazione geografica tipica" status.

Why would the producers take such risks? Gigi Piumatti, the Slow Food organisation's top wine expert, blamed the compulsion to please American palates. "North Americans have a different taste for wine to Italians,"he said, "They like it relatively soft and sweet, less powerful and complex than the best Brunello. There are two ways of achieving this: by picking the grapes as late as possible so they have greater sugar content and less acid; and by secretly mixing sweeter grapes, particularly Merlot, with the Sangiovese."