Sparkling Red Wine Flowed from Kitchen Taps in an Italian Village

Sure, having beer, wine, or other beverages on tap would be a nice addition to any home bar. Replacing the main water supply in your kitchen with wine, however, probably wouldn't be ideal for your daily cooking and cleaning needs. But a village in Modena, Italy experienced just that when an accident at a nearby winery caused sparkling red wine to pour from residents' faucets.

Castelvetro, a village in central Modena, is home to the Cantina Settecani Castelvetro winery that specializes in the regional Lambrusco Grasparossa variety of sparkling red wine. Given its fizziness, when one of the silos containing the ready-to-be-bottled wine sprung a leak on Wednesday, the liquid rushed through the local water supply and reemerged as locals turned on their faucets, Insider reports. The momentary contamination was caught on video and in photos.

By the afternoon, local authorities had reassured the community via Facebook, posting the following (translated via Google): "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) not harmful to the body and free of both hygiene and health risks."

The winery apologized on its Facebook page, but yesterday joked about the incident by asking if followers prefer wine from the bottle of the tap.

It's not the first time in recent weeks that a community has turned on its taps only to find a tipple pouring out. Just a month ago, an apartment complex in Kerala, India had a similar situation occur with liquor from a nearby bar. The local business had been forced to dump a large amount of booze down its drain, which seeped into a nearby well serving the apartment building. Read more about that here.