U.S. ban on Brunello wine delayed until June 23

NEW YORK, May 29 (Reuters Life!) - U.S. government officials gave Italy an extra two weeks to identify which of the hundreds of thousands of bottles of one of Italy's most storied wines have been mislabeled.

Italian authorities seized hundreds of thousands of bottles of 2003 Brunello di Montalcino in April because they suspected winemakers were using grapes other than Sangiovese - the only ingredient allowed in the premium Tuscan wine.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) wrote to the Italian embassy in Washington to say U.S. customs had been told to bar all shipments of Brunello di Montalcino beginning June 9, or until Italy provided the list of producers and brand names and vintages of the affected product.

"They now have until June 23 before we will block shipments," TTB spokesman Art Resnick said on Thursday.

TTB's job is to ensure that a wine's label accurately reflects a bottle's content. But, according to one wine producer, "There is no international accepted standard of certifying that a wine is 100 percent of a given varietal."

The Italians, reluctant to reveal the names of the producers they were investigating, asked for a two-week delay.

Lars Leicht, an executive at Banfi, one of Italy's largest Brunello producers and one of its largest U.S. importers, told Reuters that about 20,000 cases of the 2003, or roughly half the vintage, was being held up by Italian authorities.

"The wine is being kept under optimal conditions at the winery," he said.

"The TTB blockade doesn't directly affect us because right now we are one of many wineries that are under investigation and we can't ship the remainder of the vintage," he explained.

A quarter of Brunello di Montalcino's annual production is sold in the United States.