Summary of the conferences and meetings

The conference organized by Unione Italiana Vini entitled “Viticulture and oenology – Addresses, technologies and prospects” was focused on the impacting themes of eco-sensibility in the vine-growing and oenological field. Nowadays, this is an unavoidable subject, but, at least in our country, it must decidedly pass from theory to practice, as it emerged from the different technical reports illustrated by prestigious exponents of the Italian and foreign scientific and institutional world.

According to Joël Rochard from Institut Français de la Vigne et du Vin, the management of resources is necessary to ensure life sustainability on our planet. Surely, technical hindrances, as well as increases in the production costs are sometimes to be faced. Mentioning some practical examples, it is essential for the enterprises to arrange washing areas for atomizers, concentrate the sewage substances by filtration and clarifying processes, employ techniques and micro-organisms to reduce the polluting potential of wine-growing effluents. On this last point, there are already efficient examples of employment of ditch reeds (Phragmites australis) also in Italian wineries.

As a reliable example already in progress, there was the presentation at the conference of the innovative project “Optimization of vineyard management and protection as a competitiveness factor on the market”, carried out by Unione Italiana Vini, in co-operation with Università degli Studi of Milan and Bayer Cropscience.
Assuming that the sanitary management of the vineyard derives from a series of interconnected factors, which therefore imply modulated and not fixed replies, an accurate remote sensing system of the vegetative state of some vineyards has been developed,  - also with the new technologies of precision viticulture, - by the agronomists of Ager SC – Agriculture and Research, to establish some functional parameters of the vineyard canopy and some optimal limits for the best adjustment of vegetative balance. On the monitored vineyards a special treatment protocol has been applied, - followed by the technicians of Bayer CropScience, - already meeting the standards that will be enforced in the next years with the coming into force of the new EC regulations. Finally, the grapes and wines of these vineyards, compared with samples normally managed, will be analyzed to value the presence and the possible residue levels and other polluting substances by the laboratories of Unione Italiana Vini.
In the first year, the correct management of vineyards enabled to obtain healthy grapes capable of producing healthy, high-quality wines that may also have a good economic competitiveness. Thanks to the achieved results it will be possible to develop an “integrated management model for the sustainability of wine-growing production”, i.e. a “format” identifying the critical points of the vineyard management with reference to the hygienic-sanitary themes, to the subjects of healthiness and quality of finished products, to issues concerning the environment and the health and safeguard of wine-growers during the vineyard management stages.
 
“Soil is an unrenewable resource, a fruit of pedogenesis processes and – said Osvaldo Failla of Milan University – in 2007 the European Parliament highlighted soil erosion as the most pressing environmental problem. Also vine-growing is sometimes responsible for an erosion increase by excavations and filling, working of soils subject to landslides, etc … However, we must deal with the management of grapes quality and the adaptation of genotype-by-environment interaction is obtained by the study and implementation of zonation in the areas planted with vines. It is necessary to aim at the vegeto-productive balance, sought-after and achieved by accurate interventions of agronomic technique”. “But everything – went on Stefano Poni of the Catholic University of Piacenza – is to be seen in a perspective of mechanization and, almost paradoxically, an eco-sustainable and balanced vineyard must reduce the demand for corrective mechanical operations (for example green pruning, heading, leaf removal), even if it is not possible to avoid some essential operations, such as winter pruning”. Vigorous vineyards require repeated heading and, in every distribution area, it is necessary to look for the breaking point between quantity and quality. Early leaf removal may help to obtain less compact clusters and variable-rate leaf removers may adjust the leaf removing force according to the vigour found along the vine rows.

The limits and critical points towards the environment shown by a winery can be summarized in energy, water, materials, CO2 emissions and other types of emissions (sodium and other chemical elements). “60 to 600 kilowatt-hour and 3-4 litres water are needed for each litre of wine – said Roberto Ferrarini of Verona University – all this only for the cellar operations (even if there are discordant data varying according to area). But every phase implies a consumption of something: fining in barriques employs a consumption of 10-70 grams of wood by litre of wine; the management of filtration, fermentation and bottling imposes strong energy consumption and so on. “There are possibilities to replace some operations by other, less impacting ones – explained Mr. Ferrarini - For example, cold settling is energetically expensive, so flotation is better; in the same way sulphite decantation may theoretically replace traditional decantation by the use of enzymes and also warm maceration may be replaced by sulphite maceration (completed by a desulphurization with hydrogen peroxide). But even these alternative techniques show critical aspects”.
To reduce the emissions caused by alcoholic fermentation, it is possible to convert carbon dioxide into calcium carbonate; electrodialysis by bipolar membranes is a technique alternative to acidification; chemical clearing may be replaced by eco-cleaning; fining in barriques can be made by chips, tangential filtration can substitute for the use of bentonite; micro-filtration instead of warm microbial stabilization … Then, the issue of racking, handling and blending that imply high water consumption: it is necessary to limit these operations (for example by the technique of ‘blending without racking). "With these subjects - concluded Mr. Ferrarini – it is necessary to weigh if technologically correct operations may however support the image of wine that should increase emotions in those who drink it."

As far as viticulture is concerned, during another meeting organized by Deca there was a presentation of the results of the five-years of experimentation for the system Agriveltha, capable of warning wine-growers in advance, when a phytocurative intervention is necessary against oidium and grape mildew. It resulted a difference of 1 to 3 treatments to reduce grape mildew and from 1 to 4 for oidium, thus it is possible to have an average reduction of about 30 % in the number of treatments over the five-year period.

The protagonist of the meeting organized by Amorim Cork has been the famous American journalist Paul White, awarded many times as the best writer on wine at the World Food Media Awards, who centred his speech on wine closures and in particular on the subject of reduction related to screw caps and the possible consequences at organoleptic level.

The conference “Glass, environmental sustainability and product quality”, carried out in co-operation between Unione Italiana Vini and Assovetro, has inaugurated a new, innovative relationship among wine-making enterprises and glassworks, capable of offering more guarantees to suppliers, producers and consumers. The “Supply Specifications Protocol of glass bottles”, signed between Uiv and Assovetro, is the result of six months of work and profitable discussions: for the first time it defines a platform shared by suppliers and customers, allowing to carry out those synergies in the production chain that are essential in our current, difficult economic situation, where the passwords are efficiency recovery and competitiveness. In practice, the Supply Specifications Protocol is to be considered a reference document in the definition of contract relationships among the glassworks members of Assovetro and the wineries members of Uiv and it should make up a common basis for the settlement of disputes. The protocol defines in detail the qualitative levels of bottles, serving as a document for control and inspection. The final purpose is to achieve a uniform and growing level of quality, to guarantee the efficiency of bottling operations and content protection up to the safety of consumers.

The conference “Marketing prospects and technologies in the beverage sector”, organized by CapeDecision was intended to clarify the situation of the beverage market and to discuss the future, possible trends in the field of production. In the last ten years, the market share of the wide beverage sector has been increased mainly by the category of “soft drinks” (also including mineral water). Italy is a more and more mature market, where beverage manufacturers are called to carefully observe the evolution of consumption dynamics, especially in the retail sales channel (“off trade”), not underestimating the growth of “private label” products available on the shelves of the modern large-scale retail. A different story is that of the so-called “emerging markets” (China, Mexico, Indonesia…), where per capita consumption is likely to keep on rising at interesting rates even in the next years. On the packaging front, new ideas have been proposed: from the PET bottles and the non-returnable kegs (5 to 20 litres capacity each) for the transport and tapping of beer, to the multipack packaging and the creative possibilities in the customization of containers.

The Italian Consortium of olive-growers, on the occasion of the conference “ ‘High Quality’ extra-virgin olive oil”, presented a new market segment for extra-virgin olive oils. Generic quality doesn’t pay, high-quality oils should be obtained with higher parameters than the ones established by law. As a result the presentation of a product specifications protocol, which actually establishes not only some reference points for the single production phases, from the field to the oil press, but also concerns and extends its field of action to the whole production chain, even reaching the cooking professional users of this product.