The State Drillers

Two years or so ago, an amusing piece of news appeared in the papers: a Royal Investigation Commission, which had been appointed to look into ways of addressing the viticulture crisis, proposed an institution of state wine tasters (it is well known that in Italy as soon as fairly numerous groups of farmers and industrialists begin to mount a protest, claiming they cannot force the public to buy their products at a price high enough to cover their production costs — which may or may not be reasonable — the result is that a royal commission is immediately appointed to carry out a careful investigation into the mysterious causes of such an objectionable habit on the part of consumers). These state wine tasters were supposed to be capable of distinguishing at once between adulterated and legitimate wines, relying on their refined palates to make the distinction after even a chemical analysis had failed to discover any evidence that wine adulterators had committed the abominable misdeed. A more admirable profession could hardly have been imagined: and there would no doubt have been a huge open competition for candidates hoping to be appointed as ‘state drinkers’, had it not been for the ill-omened intervention of fate: through the harshness of the seasons, the viticulture crisis was resolved spontaneously in the annus horribilis 1910 (a winter of discontent for the aborted latest generation of state ‘officials’ and for the corresponding organization chart and salary improvement league), with its shortage of grapes and unexpected rise in the price of wine. Who now, among the wine-growers, wishes to propose the appointment of ‘skilful state wine tasters’ to look into how much water is added, in the secret recesses of country vineyards, to wine that is in short supply and cannot satisfy consumers’ demands?