Death Toll Stands at 18 : Italy Jolted by Poisoning, Halts All Exports of Wine

At least 18 Italians have died of methyl alcohol poisoning since early March, and uncounted others have fallen gravely ill in what some experts believe to be the worst tainted-wine scandal in history.

Stung by the seizure--by some of its partners in the European Communities--of bulk and bottled cheap wine found to be laced with the methyl alcohol, Italy formally notified the Common Market in Brussels on Tuesday that it has temporarily halted all exports. The order will be in effect until Italy can set up a testing and certification system to guarantee the purity of its wines.

An industry source in Rome said he doubts that any of the polluted wine has reached the United States. The Italian Wine and Food Institute, which represents Italian wine exporters in New York, was quoted here as saying that all Italian wine shipped to the United States is subjected to strict quality control in order to win the Italian government’s seal of approval.

Policemen throughout Italy, meanwhile, searched supermarket shelves and wine merchants’ storerooms for thousands of bottles of tainted wine under dozens of brand labels, one of which claimed the 18th Italian victim on Monday, a 76-year-old man in the northern city of Brescia.

Much or all of the poisoned wine is believed by Italian authorities to have come since last December from seven wholesalers who sold in bulk to dozens of bottlers, each of which affixed its own label, and apparently to exporters of bulk and bottled wine as well.

Milan state prosecutor Alberto Nobili, who is in charge of investigating the scandal, said the seven companies are suspected of adding highly toxic quantities of the methyl alcohol, or methanol, to nearly worthless low-alcohol wine in order to boost its alcohol content and make it marketable as cheap table wine. Methanol is normally used in antifreeze and as a paint thinner.

Methanol, which is also called wood alcohol, can cause blindness and damage to the body organs, and in some cases death, in contrast to relatively harmless ethyl alcohol, which is the product of natural fermentation and distillation. Very small amounts of methyl alcohol appear naturally in wine, but it is illegal everywhere to add the substance to any beverage.

Most Authoritative

“It is unprecedented, the worst wine scandal ever,” said American wine expert Burton Andersen, whose book, “Vino,” is regarded as the most authoritative ever published on Italian wines.

Anderson said the damage to the Italian wine industry could be incalculable. Italy is the world’s leading producer and exporter of wines, realizing more than $1 billion a year from exports alone on annual production of about 7 billion liters.

Italy ships more wine to the United States than any other wine-producing nation, but most of its wine exports go to France and Germany, in that order, much of it in bulk for use in cutting domestic wines with higher-alcohol Italian varieties.

“We can’t quantify the damage done yet, but it is enormous, and there could be a collapse in prices and production,” said a wine consultant to the Italian Confederation of Agriculture, a powerful trade association.

Steps by Neighbors

Although no poisonings have been reported outside Italy, Common Market countries have taken steps to limit the possibility of toxic wines entering their markets.

France, for example, has seized a total of 17 million liters, much of it transported by tanker and used in mixing with French table wines. After 1,100 tests, according to the French Finance Ministry, enough of the wine was found to have highly toxic levels of methanol that at least 5 million liters will be destroyed.

Belgium warned its citizens Tuesday to avoid Italian wines and asked importers to stop selling them unless they have been analyzed for the presence of methanol.

The Belgian government extended its warning to all table wines that contain a mixture of Common Market wines for fear that some of the polluted Italian wine has already been used by other European wineries for cutting their lowest-cost products.

Swiss authorities seized 40,000 liters of Italian red wine at the border last week, Denmark has banned all imports and West German health authorities have advised against drinking any Italian wine.

54 Labels on List

Meanwhile, the Italian Ministry of Agriculture has compiled a list of more than 54 labels, all low-grade and low-cost wines, that are believed to be tainted.

The suspect wines have been sold in Italy mainly in small wine shops and supermarkets, priced at low as 65 cents a liter.

“Anything priced that low can’t even be wine; it has to be polluted with something,” said Ezio Rivella, general manager of Villa Banfi, Italy’s largest wine exporter. “This is an episode which is criminal and which has involved low-level companies that work at prices that are so low they are impossible.”

Rivella, who is considered one of Italy’s top experts on quality wines, said that no genuine wine can be produced for 65 cents a liter.

“It is a case of alimentary terrorism,” the specialist with the Confederation of Agriculture said, asking that his name not be used. “The discipline which necessarily monitors wine-making is extremely rigorous. This is just a case of banditry.”

A spokesman for the Italian Federation of Wine Producers and Exporters, which deals mainly with higher quality wines, said the scandal has involved only the low-priced products and is not expected to touch any of the country’s better known labels.

Strict Government Controls

Wines with these labels are produced under strict government and professional controls and bear the letters DOC to signify their quality. The letters stand for Denominazione di Origine Controllata, acknowledging that the wine maker has met strict standards at every level of the process from the cultivation of the grapes to the bottling of the wine.

The spokesman said it is inconceivable that any DOC wine could be doctored, because they are too closely supervised. Most DOC wines cost too much to make doctoring worthwhile anyway, another wine specialist said.

But because of the huge quantities of low-cost wines that apparently are involved, and the importance of the wine industry to the nation’s economy, the Italian wine scandal has had no parallel anywhere in the world, the experts said.

It is far worse in scale than the scandal that virtually eliminated Austrian wines from the market last year. Some Austrian wine makers were found to have added ethylene glycol, a toxic, sweetening element, to their wines, and the discovery wiped out export sales. Ethylene glycol is also used in antifreeze. There were no known fatalities from the tainted Austrian wine.

Laboratories Mobilized

In an effort to recover at least partially from the damage of the scandal, the Italian ministries of health and agriculture have begun mobilizing laboratories to test wines for export in order to give them a government guarantee of purity before they are shipped.

The government also has submitted an emergency bill to Parliament that provides for stiffer penalties against persons caught doctoring wines and setting up closer inspection routines for foods and beverages.

But despite the moves for stricter controls, the government of Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi is under fire for not launching an alert about the doctored wine when the first deaths were reported in early March. Critics, who fear that more deaths may occur before all the poisoned wine is found, charge that lives could have been saved if the government had acted more forcefully to publicize the scandal.

There have been calls for the resignations of Health Minister Costante Degan and Agriculture Minister Filippo Pandolfi, but both have vowed to see the crisis through.