You can not buy brunello from the vintages 2004 through 2007 from these wineries. Since the producers will have to re-certify yearly and that may mean pulling vines, etc. So, should/are we going to buy the wines that have been de-classified to other levels. I guess it boils down to history.

Just because they found it now - does it mean that it didn't happen in the past? No, it doesn't - it just means that they caught it now. We don't even know at what levels they are bad.

Was it 1%, 5% or 10%? Could there have been these vines in the vineyard for 25 yrs, 40 yrs or more? Have we been enjoying "psuedo brunello" for decades? I'd like to know the answers to these questions.

I know that Frescobaldi and Banfi have denied the charges completely, saying that basically it's political and stray vines are in every vineyard - how much is the key I guess.

So if a wine that has been declassified to a certain level and it meets those standards, yeah - I'll buy it. I'll certainly won't be buying brunellos from them in the future - then again can you really trust the other guys?

It's a shame that this happens in the wine world. So many wineries end up loosing credibility for something like this. Not good at all.

I've made a mistake with some of the info I've read. Not all of the juice the government checked failed. In fact Banfi has released their '04 Brunello. I guess this goes to just what information we are receiving is accurate. Obviously they didn't check every bottle, so how do we know what to believe, and how much of it to believe?