Malfunction causes water taps in Italian village to pour wine

If Jesus was a plumber, the world would be a much better place. Turning water into wine at a wedding is all well and good. Doing it in someone’s home, however, lets you open up a whole range of exciting alcohol-related possibilities. 

Short of a Messiah-inspired miracle, it turns out that there actually are ways to get wasted via your waterworks. If you live in Italy, for example, all you need is proximity to a negligent wine producer and you could find yourself bathing in bottle after bottle of frothy red vino. Anyone who claims pipes aren’t endlessly fascinating clearly needs to pay a visit to Castelvetro. 

This ordinarily sleepy region of northern Italy was the sight of an alarming and unexpectedly delicious plumbing malfunction this week, when local taps ran red with sparkling wine. 

The incident, which first shocked and then delighted onlookers, was caused by a fault at the Lambrusco Grasparossa bottling line of Cantina Settecani Castelvetro’s winery, resulting in alcohol flooding into the water pipes. 

As per a report from Unilad, the error occurred after one of the facility’s wine silos overflowed and, as a result of low water pressure, caused the wine to flood through the system of several neighbouring houses in the immediate area. 

Check out our amazing recipe for Wine Can Chicken (Can au Vin):

It didn’t take long for images and videos of happy townspeople doing their best to load up on wine before the fault was fixed to appear on the internet. The local Municipality soon issued an apology on its Facebook page, writing:

“Regarding the reports received on the Settecani water system, we wanted to inform you that it was a sudden failure of the production plant of a company in the area. The fault has already been resolved and there are no more problems to the network in question, we reassure that it was a loss of food liquid (wine) that is not harmful to the body and free of both hygiene and health risks.”

Though several locals were understandably alarmed that any liquid other than water could make it into the system, several others were more upbeat. One commented, Turning on the tap and seeing Grasparossa coming out is a dream come true,” while another added, “You could have waited to fix that I bottled a hundred bottles!” Clearly, free alcohol is an excellent way to get people to see the funny side if something goes seriously wrong at work.