As if to validate my occasional screeds about overpriced Italian wines, Roberto Giuliani of Esilazioni Etiliche has published a post relating the "worst conditions in twenty years" for the grape growers and winemakers of Tuscany. One spokesman for a Tuscan property said that he was offered ten euros for a quintale (roughly 220 pounds) of white grapes -- less than the cost of harvesting them. He left them on the vine. (Click on the link above to read the entire piece in Italian.)
This isn't the first I've heard of viticulturalists leaving grapes to rot this year, nor is Tuscany alone in its plight. The market is so weak that even Germany seems to be taking a lot less Italian red wine than usual -- and if the Germans aren't buying there is a crisis indeed.
The Italian Wine Guy also has written lately about the crazy, unrealistic pricing of so many Italian producers -- one of his periodic screeds on the subject, too. (Click here for link.) Everybody in the business knows that this is a huge stumbling block.

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Posted on July 19, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (3)