Wine on Tap? One Italian Town Had Lambrusco Flowing Through the Pipes Thanks to a Winery Snafu

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Forget water. One Italian village had Lambrusco Grasparossa, an effervescent red wine produced in Modena’s Castelvetro region, on tap. At least, it did for a sweet minute on Thursday after a mistake of biblical proportions sent the sparkling drink streaming through its resident’s plumbing systems.

While it sounds like a follow-up to verse John 2:1-11 (that’s when Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding), there was no divine intervention. The cause was a mishap at a local winery.

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According to the Gazette di Modena, the intoxicating dilemma affected residents in the Castelveto area of Modena in the northern Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and was the result of a ‘technical fault’ at the nearby Setticani winery. The problem began when a silo holding the wine started leaking into the water pipes. The wine was shot through the mains and directed into nearby houses. And when the residents’ turned on their taps, fizzy pink booze gushed out instead of water. Poor them.

While watered-down Lambrusco doesn’t sound like a dream tipple, residents reportedly bottled as much as possible before technicians from the water board were able to put a cork in the predicament, according to UNILAD.

“Lambrusco Grasparossa came out of some taps in the Settecani district this morning,” the winery said in a post on Facebook. “The accident did not involve hygienic or health risks: it was only wine, which was already ready for bottling.” The local council also issued an apology.

Despite the obvious drawbacks—we can’t imagine washing your hands with red wine would be particularly nice—both the winery and the residents were able to see the lighter side. Along with a slideshow of media reports about the incident, the winery wrote: “How do you prefer it, in the bottle or from the tap?” to which one Facebook user responded, “The next time you open the valve from 7:30 pm onwards, happy hour.”

Now, if we could just figure out how to get viognier flowing through the taps in New York City …

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