Italian Fights City Hall to Protect Vineyard From Odoriferous Trash Dump

The Tuscan aristocrat who produces one of Frank Sinatra’s favorite wines is fighting to defend the quality of the $180-a-bottle vintage--from the unwanted smells of a huge rubbish dump.

Franco Biondi-Santi has declared war on local politicians who want to dump 14 million cubic feet of garbage on the doorstep of one of Italy’s most prestigious wine-growing areas.

Wine growers and farm workers are furious about the plan to build a garbage recycling plant at Montalcino and ship in refuse from 36 towns in Tuscany.

They are worried that if the plant develops a fault, the precious grapes they depend on would absorb atmospheric pollution--especially at harvest time, when they are at their most vulnerable.

“The dump just goes to show that Italy isn’t civilized about its wine,” Biondi-Santi said at his 18th-Century stone villa shaded by cypress trees.

He said the plan endangered the whole way of life in Montalcino, whose Medici fortress looms over stark clay moors south of Siena.

Montalcino’s red Brunello wines have lifted the town out of poverty and made it the richest in the province of Siena.

Biondi-Santi and other local residents say the smelly dump and recycling plant will also ruin Montalcino’s image as a picturesque area of beautiful, rolling hills.

This will drive away tourists who bring in much needed money, they say.

Biondi-Santi, a dynamic 69-year-old whose ancestors have been making the priciest of the Brunello wines since 1888, is the figurehead of the campaign against the rubbish dumping.

His is one of only six Italian wines boasting an elite label that carries a state guarantee of the vintage’s origin and ingredients.

Rich wine lovers pay hefty prices for the ruby red vintage. A 1955 bottle fetches $900 while an 1891 Biondi-Santi Brunello could bring as much as $25,000.

Frank Sinatra’s favorite, says Biondi-Santi, is the 1975 vintage at $180.

“I love my land, I thank God for the fact I was born here,” said the tall Biondi-Santi. “But we have our big cross to bear: communist authorities who leave no room for dialogue because the law is laid down by the party.”

Biondi-Santi and a hundred rival producers of lesser Brunellos have buried their differences to fight the dump, which is planned for a site less than half a mile from the closest vines.

Montalcino’s Mayor Mauro Guarrini, a bohemian figure with flowing gray hair and beard, originally opposed the plan. However, he now says amendments to the initial plan changed his mind and prompted him to vote with fellow communists to give it the green light.

“We’ve managed to make the plant three times as small as the original plan and to ensure that no hospital waste will be put there. I’ve got children here, and I’m not worried,” he said.

Some 500 residents demonstrated in the town center recently against the plan and shops closed to show their solidarity.

Guarrini turned up to try to pacify the crowd but failed.

More protests are scheduled--a three-day general strike, the occupation of the town hall, and a “protest march” of tractors across the rolling clay hills to Siena.

“In France, the winemakers lay down the law. They invade streets, they pour out their wine on city squares if they’re angry. There people are attached to wine as something of quality,” Biondi-Santi said with a touch of envy.