ONE OF THE MOST AUTHORITATIVE ENTREPRENEURS OF ITALY, ANGELO GAJA, WRITES TO WINENEWS ON WHAT THE BRUNELLO EPISODE SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT ITALY. “ONE FACT IS CERTAIN: WITH THIS PRECEDENCE, FOR ITALIAN DOC AND DOCG WINES, IT CAN NO LONGER BE AS IT WAS BEFORE…”

According to Angelo Gaja, one of today’s most important Italian wine entrepreneurs, Italy, as opposed to France, prescribes the percentages authorized for the use of grape varieties in production for all of its DOC and DOCG wine with production disciplines. With the aim of contrasting the violation of the given norm and, therefore, to contrast commercial fraud, there has been a total aligning towards provisions that, over time, have proven not to be efficient: analyses of wine over the course of the production process in barrels, organoleptic tastings, controls that must be done with a plethora of registers, the application on bottles of state seals or guarantees, etc…

With the investigation that is underway in Montalcino, government investigators have now recognized the validity of the method that has been created by the Enosis laboratory of Donato Lanati, which is capable of ascertaining whether the confiscated wines were created with other varietals than the 100% Sangiovese prerequisite.

This type of analysis had never been used by control entities in order to ascertain the varietal correspondence of a wine with that of the prescribed production discipline and the same analyses could also be extended to verify varietal use in all DOC and DOCG wines.

The large-scale application of this analysis method would introduce several novelties: the bottlers, before organizing the acquisition with wine retailers would have the possibility of verifying correspondence with production disciplines; the difficult control system for DOC and DOCG wines would be simplified and improved; it would finally be possible to do controls on bottles that are already on the market rather than continue to ask how bottles of Chianti, Barbera, Nero D’Avola, can be sold to the public for such indecently low prices.
There is, however, also the other side of the coin that is worrisome: that contentions are created between control entities and producers; pressure to change disciplines that are considered too rigid will increase; that disaffection for DOC and DOCG wines will increase and be substituted by preferences for brand name wines; that the analysis methods recognized in Italy will be adopted by laboratories abroad in order to verify the correspondence of imported Italian wines to their disciplines.

One fact is certain: with the precedence of this investigation, it will never be the same for DOC and DOCG wines in Italy. It is necessary that producers become aware of this and make a positive move towards quality (and price), finding once again cohesion and unity in intentions and contributing to inspiring the changes that must be made.

Angelo Gaja