Austrian Wine

Max Hauser? He hasn't posted here in a few years, though he can still be found on eGullet, I think. If you're looking for information on the Austrian wine scandal, see the Wikipedia article:

Max's point was that diethylene glycol is really no more toxic than ethanol, which of course is present in every wine you drink, but that people conflated it with ethylene glycol, a far more toxic substance.

Mark Lipton

A little like the attempted cyanide poisoning of the water system in Rome in 2002. It was potassium ferricyanide, which has pretty low toxicity. But for the press the word cyanide was in there and that was good enough.

Indeed, Mike. Potassium ferricyanide is safe enough that it was included in the chemistry set that I had as a child. Of course, these days all "chemicals" are bad, so ipso facto it must be nasty shit :)

Mark Lipton

You mean they still sell those sets? I am shocked.

This was by no means the only or the worst wine scandal, since nobody died and the Austrians quickly cleaned up their act to become very strict about quality; since them Austria's wines have become on average very good indeed.

In 1986 in Italy 23 people died of wine laced with methanol. My compatriots only learned one thing from the experience: that people can die :-)

Before rules were tightened around WWII, wine adulteration was quite commonplace.

I'm interested in attending the austrian wine academy in Rust, does anyone have tips or any info at all i'm confused about the degree you graduate with.