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Vino Nobile di Montepulciano: first Italian DOCG to receive sustainability label according to Equalitas

by Editorial Staff 05/26/22
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Presentazione certificazione equalits Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is the first Italian appellation to bear the Equalitas sustainability label after a three-year journey.

Still a pioneer, the Consortium of Italy's first DOCG, which, thanks to the certification mark according to the Equalitas standard, is the first Italian wine district in this direction. Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, President Equalitas: "An important signal for the entire system of wine appellations in our country." Andrea Rossi, President of the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano: "A strategic and educational path to new managerial structures shared with our companies."

It is now official: Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is the first Italian denomination to have received the sustainability certification mark according to the Equalitas standard. The news was announced at the headquarters of Federdoc, among the partners in the journey, during the presentation of the milestone, which concerned the Tuscan appellation as the first in Italy in this sense. "The goal that we set ourselves from the beginning of the journey," says Andrea Rossi, president of the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, "we immediately considered it strategic because in order to achieve it we favored 'a cultural change' in our companies with the aim of progressively modifying the production and organizational profile with production methods and techniques that are more respectful of the environment and the landscape, but above all in the direction of ensuring a high standard of ethical, social and economic values, which will strengthen the cohesion between our businesses and between them and the territory thus looking at an environmental, economic and ethical-social dimension where respect for collective values and rights plays a central role in this process."

"That given by the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is an important signal for the entire sector of our country's wine appellations," stresses Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, President of Equalitas, "and comes as confirmation that the path taken by Federdoc has in the Equalitas standard a reference point of absolute value. The journey towards an increasingly sustainable Italy of wine continues apace and, above all, now represents a fundamental ethical and economic value in the positioning of our labels on world markets."

Sustainability: a journey that starts from afar in Montepulciano. The vision of sustainability in Montepulciano was born in times long past. In the years 1985/1990, thanks to the sensitivity of the Consortium and the support of the Municipality of Montepulciano, a network of weather stations installed throughout the production area was created to collect weather data. Based on the conditions found, on a weekly basis agronomic experts would issue the "green message." In fact, an operational tool for the benefit of farms that made it possible to rationalize phytosanitary defense interventions, with the consequent limitation of the use of chemical principals.

In the early 1990s, the Consortium was among the first in Italy to investigate production soils through a zoning project called "Vino Nobile Di Montepulciano Zoning and Valorization Of The Territory," which involved production vineyards during the three-year period 1992/1994. It was conducted by the viticulture research group at the Istituto Agrario di San Michele all'Adige with the fundamental contribution of the then Istituto Sperimentale per lo studio e la difesa del Suolo in Florence. The climate section was handled by the Experimental Institute for Viticulture in Arezzo. The project produced a thematic map for the management of the production area that is still relevant today and basic to the studies that have followed. Around 2006, in collaboration with the municipal administration, a project was born to dispose of biological waste from the vineyards to produce biomass for combustion for energy support to school and administrative buildings.
 
In 2015, the Carbon Footprint project of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano became a model on a national scale. In fact, the system that calculates the "carbon footprint" of the production cycle of a bottle of Vino Nobile, i.e., the CO2 emissions resulting from the production of the prized Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita wine, has been recognized by a group of institutions and companies that operate at the highest levels in the field of quality and related certifications and will therefore match their names with those of the project. The idea of measuring the Carbon Footprint of the Montepulciano DOCG and activating a series of practices for decreasing or offsetting carbon dioxide emissions was presented at the 2014 Vino Nobile Preview by the Municipality of Montepulciano (which financed the project), the producers' consortium and Marconi University in Rome, which was charged with the technical and scientific implementation. The program, which received sponsorship from the Region of Tuscany, the Province of Siena and the provincial Chamber of Commerce, went from the design phase to the experimental phase in about a year thanks to a data collection platform tested with Marconi University in Rome. Producers at the time readily understood the revolutionary scope of the project, expressing conviction and enthusiasm; the same attitude was manifested by Gambero Rosso, a leading international voice in food and wine information, which equally pledged its support for the "launch" of the news and the related campaign. This project was awarded in 2015 at Smau in Milan as "Smart Communities."  
 
The Equalitas standard (www.equalitas.it), developed by the Italian company of the same name controlled by Federdoc, allows for the certification of sustainability of the Organization, i.e., the individual wine company, wine products and Denominations of Origin. The standard is designed specifically for the wine sector and is certainly among the most cutting-edge internationally, the only one that also provides for the certification of designations of origin. Equalitas is a very demanding protocol that involves compliance with a large number of environmental requirements, such as measuring carbon and water footprints, and socioeconomic requirements, such as verifying respect for trade union freedoms and equal opportunities. In addition, Equalitas also requires the achievement of progressive goals and the preparation of a sustainability report in which to present and communicate achievements.
 
"Noble" assets. Approximately 1 billion euros. This is the figure that quantifies Vino Nobile di Montepulciano between asset values, turnover and production. About 65 million euros is the average annual value of wine production, not to mention that about 70 percent of the local economy is directly induced by wine. This is an important figure for a territory in which out of 16,500 hectares of municipal area, about 2,000 hectares are planted with vines, or about 16 percent of the municipal landscape is characterized by vines. Of these, 1,210 hectares are registered for Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Docg, while 305 hectares are registered for Rosso di Montepulciano Doc. More than 250 winegrowers cultivate these vineyards (there are about 90 bottlers in all of whom 75 are associated with the producers' consortium). About 1,000 permanent employees are employed by the wine sector in Montepulciano, to which are added as many seasonal employees. In 2021, 6.8 million bottles of Vino Nobile (+21.4 percent compared to 2020) and 2.6 million bottles of Rosso di Montepulciano (+6.4 percent compared to 2020) have been placed on the market.



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