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Skulduggery amid the gently sloping vineyards of Tuscany sent an estimated £10 million worth of one of Italy’s most celebrated red wines gurgling down the drain A Tuscan vineyard between Castellina and Poggibonsi in Italy   Saboteurs broke into the cellars of the Case Basse winery in the middle of the night, turned on the taps of the giant wooden casks in which the wine was maturing, and let more than 62,000 litres of prized Brunello di Montalcino drain onto the ground. The resulting virtual lake of wine represented 80,000 bottles, each of which can sell for 170 euros or more — a total estimated value of more than 13 million euros. The nocturnal raiders did no other damage to the estate’s “ cantina ”, nor did they steal anything, deepening the mystery and suggesting that it was less a random episode of vandalism and more a deliberate act of spite. The raid wiped out the last six vintages of the 6.5 he...

Italy 's highest court on Tuesday ruled that a court in Palermo had wrongly dragged President Giorgio Napolitano into a probe on alleged negotiations between the mafia and the state following deadly gangland bombings two decades ago. The constitutional court said it had accepted Napolitano's argument that wiretaps of him speaking to a former interior minister about the mafia investigation could not be used in the case and should have been destroyed immediately. The ruling takes pressure off Napolitano, seen as the guarantor of Mario Monti's technocrat government , who is likely to play an important role in the formation of a new government after elections expected in March. The 87-year-old president risked being weakened by the case which drew negative coverage of him in some domestic newspapers . A ruling against Napolitano would have marred his mandate, which ends early next year, by linking him with one of the most notorious epis...