by Michèle Shah
The work of fraud inspectors in northern Italy has lead to the arrest of further suspects in the wine industry. Gianfranco and Christian Fattori from San Bonifacio, Verona, have been charged with several unlawful deals they are said to have made
under a pseudonym and two bulk wine companies. Interestingly enough, both were already entangled in a wine scandal two years ago. Now they are charged again with having upgraded table wines from cooperatives in Puglia, Campania and Abruzzo into both IGT and DOC wines by forging papers. The company San Leo had purchased approximately 20,000 hectolitres of bulk wine beginning in February 2005 and gone out of business by the end of that year. The cooperatives are still awaiting payment.
Investigations continue, but authorities assume that the table wines were sold as IGT and DOC wines from Veneto, both as Pinot Grigio and Prosecco. For the first time ever authorities are beginning to speak openly about the fact that in many parts of northern Italy papers are not always what they should be.
