Wine writer Monty Waldin, quite coincidentally producer of this week’s wine of the week, has been visiting the troubled Montalcino zone on a regular basis since 2004. Over the last few months, quite unrelated to his own Roussillon wine and his forthcoming tv series about producing it, he has been sending me increasingly agitated emails about Brunellogate, also known as Brunellopoli. Unbidden by me, he has finally decided to express his frustration here with what he sees as a flawed wine producing zone. He ends with a disclaimer.
I first arrived in Montalcino in 2004 to write a...