Tainted Mafia Wine: Beware!

A few days ago I wrote about Italian buffalo mozzarella (archived under the Food category) which was found to be contaminated with dioxins as a result of a long drawn garbage crisis. As I wrote, the Neapolitan Mafia, the “camorra”, is believed (or should I say alleged) to have had a major responsibility for the rubbish crisis since it has long operated huge scale illegal dumping (a lot of it being industrial toxic waste) in and around Naples.

Yesterday, authorities in Italy “suspect” some 70 million liters of cheap wine on sale in local shops and supermarkets could contain illegal, harmful substances, a weekly magazine reported Friday. And in a separate report that threatens to harm the image of one of Italy’s most prized vintages, L’Espresso magazine also said a probe is underway on an alleged scam to mislead consumers by falsely labeling bottles.

Who is responsible this time? The Mafia. Read on.

Italy produced and sold at least 70 million liters of cheap wine containing acid, manure and fertilizer, Italian weekly L’Espresso said on Friday, largely blaming organized crime in the south.

It said bottles sold at less than two euros (around three dollars) a liter contained very little wine, and a potentially deadly concoction of water and chemical substances, including hydrochloric acid.

L’Espresso said 20 companies, eight of which are in the north of Italy, were currently being investigated. In southern Italy, two companies based in Taranto and run by the local Sacra Corona Unita mafia were the main source of the bootleg beverage, the report said.

Despite a recent crackdown, many bottles of the tainted wine are still being sold, L’Espresso said, adding that it found a whole stack in a shopping center in northeast Italy.

But Agriculture Minister Paolo De Castro played down the reports saying that the investigations showed Italy has

“serious controls in place and we can demonstrate this with the facts”

De Castro also said that the amount of wine found to have contained illegal substances amounted to less than 1 per cent of Italy’s total production. In a statement he described the Italian wine industry as dynamic and healthy, insisting that habitual wrongdoers known to the police would not ruin the image of an entire economic sector”.

Last Friday, the European Commission’s spokeswoman on health Nina Papadoulaki asked Italian authorities for an explanation on the matter, hot on the heels of THE health commissioner, Androula Vassiliou, who only a few days ago had asked the Italian authorities to provide information with regards to the tests performed on the mozzarella tainted with dioxins.

The investigation on the chemically altered wine stemmed from a September 2007 raid on a producer in Veronella, in the north-eastern Veneto region, L’Espresso said. Canisters of sulphuric acid found during the operation prompted authorities to confiscate wine from the producer’s cellar.
Test results showed that the wine seized contained only between 20 and 40 per cent of permitted natural substances with the rest made up of illegally added sugar but also fertilizers, manure and several acids, aimed at raising alcohol content.

The illegal substances can over time threaten the health of consumers including cancer, L’Espresso said. According to the same Italian magazine, further investigations led authorities to the alleged suppliers of some of the chemicals as well as more contaminated wine near Masafra in Italy’s southern Puglia province.

Authorities now suspect that a criminal network possibly controlled by the mafia was involved in producing the potentially toxic wine and arranging its distribution.

Another separate investigation on false labels is centered in Tuscany where bottles labeled as high quality Brunello di Montalcino which is made exclusively from Sangiovese grapes, in fact contained blends of other vintages.

The New York Times weighs in with this report:

At least five people were hospitalized over the weekend after drinking wine containing excessive amounts of methyl alcohol, hospital officials said today. Eleven Italians have died in the last two weeks and 25 others have been hospitalized with similar symptoms. Two of those hospitalized in the Turin area over the weekend were in comas and the others were suffering from stomach pains and blurred vision.

I’m personally sticking to the wines of the New World, and the ones I know from France. I don’t care if the minister says there’s nothing wrong with the Italian wine industry.

Tags: European Union, Italy, Mafia, Wine