Valentina Passalacqua - an inconvenient truth?

Is one of the natural wine world's newest darlings implicated in the use of illegal labour gangs? TMC investigates.

Valentina Passalacqua is a name that's made headlines all over the wine press in the last few weeks, for all the wrong reasons.

Passalacqua is a biodynamic winemaker based in the province of Foggia, Puglia, who markets her wines under the brands "Valentina", "9 is enough" and "Calcarius". She was the darling of the natural wine world - and particularly of importers and distributors who appreciated her well priced wines, until just a few weeks ago. Then on July 1st her multi-millionaire father was arrested in connection with his vegetable business (Tenute Passalacqua srl) and accused of caporalato - the practice of recruiting and coercing migrant labourers by caporale (gangmasters) to work for appallingly low wages, and to live and work in inhumane and often dangerous conditions.

Passalacqua quickly tried to distance herself from her father's empire, and initially garnered respect from the natural wine community for doing so. However, as more damning accusations and facts emerged, much of that support has ebbed away. The reporting from Glou Glou Magazine and Left Unread has been particularly strident, causing many distributors to de-list her wines and a whole army of keyboard warriors to turn on her. Questionable labour practice is in no way compatible with the perceived ethics of the natural wine world.

Meanwhile, Passalacqua continues to assert her innocence.

Could she be oblivious to her father's activities? Is she a naive rich kid, or just an honest woman trying to develop an ethical wine business outside the constraints of her father's influence? And did she really come from nowhere to overnight success in natural wine, as the entire American press seems to believe?