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The heir to a deceased duke who sold Sting his Tuscan winery 25 years ago says the singer struck a chord with a lame apology for the comments the family deem libelous
MILAN – The heir of a late duke who sold Sting his Tuscan vineyard 25 years ago, said the singer struck a damper with a lame apology for comments the family deem defamatory.
The juicy celebrity argument spilled over into the pages of Italian newspapers. Sting told the weekly magazine “Sette” on August 13 that he was persuaded to buy the Palagio winery near Florence in 1997 after tasting an “excellent” glass of red wine offered by the owner, Simone Vincenzo Velluti Zati di San Clemente. The singer, however, said it later turned out the wine was a Barolo from the Piedmont region of Italy, and not a local Tuscan Chianti at all.
The magazine called the move a “hoax” and claimed the singer “was tricked” into the purchase.
Sting, in the interview, said he didn’t realize the truth about the wine’s origins until after he bought the Palagio estate, including its vineyards, and noticed guests pouring the red Palagio into it. bushes rather than drinking it. He said he and his wife had become determined to get “revenge” by producing “excellent wine also from the vineyards of Palagio”.
The Duke’s son, 45, who died in 2012 at age 86, wrote a long and scathing rebuke to Sting’s accusations, calling them “slander, poisonous and utterly false.”
Simone Vincenzo Velluti Zati said it would have been completely irrelevant for her father to pass Barolo off as Chianti, and said Sting’s use of the interview and the anecdote to promote a new organic pizza place on the grounds were “in bad taste”.
In his letter, Velluti Zati said that Sting’s allegations “not only fall short of the truth, but seriously damage my father’s memory and my reputation.”
Sting responded on August 24 with a letter, obtained by The Associated Press, offering his “sincere and unequivocal apologies” and acknowledging that the story “as reported was disrespectful to the memory of your distinguished father.”
Sting called the Duke “an honorable man, who never misled me”, and said the anecdote was rather self-deprecating, pointing out that 25 years ago he was unable “to distinguish a Barolo of a soap “.
Velluti Zati told the AP on Tuesday that the apology was a “necessary act” on the part of the singer which was hardly convincing. He has not yet decided whether he will take further action.
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