RUMORS – THE SIENA COURTS ARE CLOSING THE CASE ON BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO…

The Siena courts are closing the investigation of the Brunello di Montalcino wine, at least according to rumors leaked out in the local newspaper (La Nazione, Siena edition), which started in September 2007. The investigations involved about 10 of the most famous wine farms on a world level, editor’s note) by the now retired Attorney General, Nino Calabrese and the Assistant Attorney, Mario Formisano. The investigation got the go ahead from the wine producers’ complaints (according to the newspaper “Italia Oggi” of April 4, 2009) of the famous red wine “corrected” with the addition of grapes which were from the Montalcino territory, but as specified by the strict production regulations were not permitted to be mixed in. There will be many bargains, many acquittals and a few prosecutions. The Siena Prosecutors based the case mainly on documentary evidence: they had 20 archive boxes full of documents (in one of the last documents the experts assigned by the judge for preliminary investigations (GIP) made note that there was a lack of a reference database, which could have been utilized to back up the analyses compiled by the approved International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) method, after the wine had been confiscated).