Inhabitants of Marino, a tiny Italian town south of Rome were as excited as denizens of Delhi and the rest of India had been, on a particular morning about 12 years back when people suddenly discovered that the statues of Lord Ganesha in the temples could be fed milk. The milk simply got sucked away and no-one ever found out if it was a miracle or what was behind the one day occurrence.
Like most Indian believers, the Italians also thought there had been a miraculous intervention when wine started flowing from the taps in their kitchens earlier this week, according to a report in Decanter. The 'miracle' occurred during the town's annual harvest festival, the Sagra dell' Uva.
A huge crowd, gathered in the square to witness the annual spurting of 3,000 liters of the year's newly pressed vintage from the Fountain of the Four Moors, became increasingly restless as the fountain continued to produce only the usual trickle of water.
But then a shout of 'miracolo' rang out from a nearby house and a woman appeared at her balcony to announce that wine was flowing from her kitchen tap.
Instead of connecting the wine to the 17th century fountain, plumbers had hooked the pipes from the local vineyard into Marino's domestic water supply!
One resident said, 'I was in the kitchen to fill a bucket with water. I immediately noticed a sweet smell from the tap and recognised instantly it was wine. Word quickly spread and everyone filled up bottles and plastic containers with the wine.'
Mayor of Marino, Adriano Palozzi said, 'It was a surprise and completely unexpected. People were calling it a miracle which it wasn't – it was a mistake.'
The Castelli Romani area has been producing straw-coloured, slightly effervescent, quaffable white wines since the Roman times. Generically known as Frascati, the wine is made from Trebbiano and Malvasia grapes.
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