Grape growers battling brute of the vine

ROME - They produce some of Italy's most exquisite wines but the verdant vineyards of Tuscany are under siege from a voracious army of nocturnal marauders.

As plump bunches of grapes begin to ripen under the summer sun, they are proving irresistible to growing herds of wild boar and deer which emerge each night from the woods in search of a feast.

The animals may look picturesque to foreign tourists as they sip their gin and tonics from the patios of upmarket "Chiantishire" villas, but to wine growers they are nothing short of a disaster.

A fully grown boar can munch its way through 50kg of grapes in a night and will damage stone walls and fences in its eagerness to feast on the sweet-tasting fruit.

Venturing out of the woods between dusk and dawn, roe deer nibble on the young green shoots emerging from the vines, stripping branches bare and ruining the harvest.

Italy's Ministry for the Environment estimates that there are at least 500,000 wild boar roaming the countryside, with around 150,000 in Tuscany. The region is also home to about 50,000 roe deer.

Their numbers have increased dramatically as a result of the depopulation of rural areas because of farm mechanisation, with large swathes of land abandoned and left to revert to woodland and scrub.

The introduction by hunters around 30 years ago of a sub-species of boar from Hungary and Romania has also helped to exacerbate the wild pig problem.

The large, heavier Eastern European breed of Sus scrofa produces double the number of piglets than its native Italian counterpart, which has been pushed out of much of its range by the interloper.

"They are big animals, they are very opportunistic and they can have 10 or 11 piglets at a time," said Massimiliano Rocco of the environmental group WWF-Italy.

"Hunters introduced them into the wild without any control on numbers. That went on for years and now we have a major problem."

Under assault are vineyards producing some of the country's best known wines, from Chianti Classico to Nobile di Montepulciano.

Using their tusks and powerful snouts to grub up soil, the bristle-backed beasts can leave vineyards looking like ploughed fields.

"They are a real scourge," said Jacopo Biondi Santi, whose Castello di Montepo estate comprises a medieval castle and 60ha of vines.

"They can do a very great deal of damage unless you protect your vineyards with electric fencing, but that is expensive," said Biondi Santi, whose family have been making wine since 1310. He is well known in Italy for producing one of the country's finest wines, the fabled Brunello di Montalcino, which was first developed 200 years ago by one of his ancestors.

Wild boar and deer also cause tremendous damage to olive and fruit trees.

"The deer rub their horns against the trunks, while the boar bang up against them to try to push them over and make a hell of a noise," said Keith Richmond, a Briton who grows olives in an idyllic spot on a hillside near Gaiole-in-Chianti, southeast of Florence.

"A big adult male can weigh 120kg and they cause a lot of erosion as they're running along the banks. We had an enormous group of about 30 animals charging around and they raised so much dust, it looked like something out of a wild west film."

Hunters are allowed to shoot a set quota of deer and boar each year but the cull has done little to bring down the numbers.

During the last hunting season, just under 5700 roe deer were shot in Tuscany. That's nearly 1000 more than the year before, but still only around a tenth of the estimated total.

"The culling of deer is very regulated, perhaps over-regulated," said Richmond's Australian-born wife, Helen. "We've always had deer around but there are a lot more this season."

Landowners and farmers' groups are now calling for the hunting quota to be urgently increased by regional authorities.

"There are many hunters in Tuscany but the season is very short," said Biondi Santi.

"We would like to see it substantially extended because at the moment, it's just not enough to keep them at bay."