Friday, May 30 2008
Ban Rolls On
Oh, those poor alligators! Have you no shame? Have you no mercy?
The US Department of the Treasury Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) are planning to ban Italian imports of Brunello wine, due to adulteration concerns. They're not banning it because there are non-wine products in it, or because it's re-labelled swill, they're banning it because Italian producers are blending small amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot into a wine that's legally required to be made from 100% Sangiovese grapes.
And these aren't chimpy little bit players doing the adulterating: big-leaguers Antinori, Frescobaldi and Banfi are all under scrutiny. Naturally they're not copping to the beef. In a statement in Decanter, Pierluigi Tagliabue of Biondi Santi claimed the move was purely political, with the US punishing Italy for something.
'I think it must be,' he told decanter.com. 'The timing is so well studied, coming just at the beginning of Vinitaly.'
He added that it would certainly cause 'big, but not huge' damage to the Brunello brand. 'It's bad for the overall image of Brunello.'
Hey Pierluigi, want to know what's really bad for Brunello's image? A tremendously restrictive series of regulations in your country, with DOCG system that over-regulates Italian wine, and excludes imports as much as possible. And that system says that Brunello must be made from 100% Sangiovese. Also, charging a zillion dollars for a wine that's supposed to be one of Italy's best and then bait 'n' switching consumers is fraud, no matter how you spin it.
And spin it the Italian producers are! Check out this argument from the same Decanter piece:
Winemakers agree that at anything below 2-3%, it is impossible to detect the presence of another grape variety in a supposedly 100% varietal wine.
Huh? If winemakers agree, then why are they adding it? Especially if it's only 1% of the volume as they're likewise insisting. I'm not buying that argument.
And I'm not buying any more Brunello any time soon. Not until they come clean or change the rules to eliminate the hypocrisy inherent in their classification system.
| Posted by Tim AT 5:34PM | 0 Comments |  |
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