THE GRAPES OF WRATH!
Sting accuses Italian duke of swindling him in vineyard deal
MESSAGE in a Bottle star Sting uncorked a sour grapes feud by claiming he and wife Trudie Styler were tricked into buying an Italian winery by sampling vino from an entirely different region.
The Police singer charges the flimflam was pulled off by the late Duke Simone Vincenzo Velluti Zati di San Clemente, who offered him a glass of chianti that was so yummy, he and Trudie immediately bought the Palagio winery in Tuscany in 1997.
“The duke asked me if I wanted to taste the wine produced by the estate and I said yes. It was an excellent wine and that convinced me to buy the vineyards as well,” Sting says.
Sting insists he later learned the duke had fooled them with a glass of fine wine from the Barolo area — and the estate’s wine was awful!
“When we served the wine from the estate to our guests, I saw that someone was emptying their glass into a flowerbed,” the rocker says.
Sting brags as a form of vengeance, he became determined to show “it was possible to produce excellent wine from the vineyards at Palagio.”
Their winery now produces 150,000 bottles a year and has opened a wine and pizza eatery on the grounds.
But his slam of the duke, who died in 2012, triggered a ferocious war of words with the nobleman’s son San Clemente Jr., who blasts the singer for “false, poisonous slander.”
Junior belittles the musician, saying, “An internationally experienced gentleman like Sting should not confuse Barolo with chianti,” adding “nothing could be more alien to my father’s character” than to “pass off Barolo as wine produced on his farm,” using a “tavern trick” originated by unscrupulous bartenders.
He also slams Sting for adding a pool, gym and yoga studio to the ancient property, turning once-classy Palagio into a “Palm Beach–style resort.”