For the Piwi Italia association, wines from resistant varieties, inspired by nature. Registered last Friday the articles of incorporation, between March and June the first meeting.
Piwi Italy officially becomes an association, starts the Sustainable revolution in vineyards. Following the signing of the bylaws during the national Vini Piwi event in Venice at the Hotel Carlton on the Gran Canal in Venice, the Piwi Italia association, established with the aim of Promote grape varieties resistant to fungal diseases and produce increasingly less impactful wines, has been formally established. The articles of incorporation were registered with the Internal Revenue Service on Friday, January 12. Also decided is the location of Piwi Italy, which will be at the Edmund Mach Foundation in San Michele all’Adige, TN.
What are Piwi grape varieties
Piwi vines (“Pilzwiderstandsfähig” in German, literally resistant to fungal diseases ) arenatural crosses between European vinifera and other vitis of American and/or Asian origin that carry the resistance genes and thus are plants capable of defending themselves against major vine diseases. This means greater eco-friendliness with the surrounding environment, greater protection of consumer health, improved quality of life for those working in the vineyard and those living around the vineyard, and reduced CO2 emissions for a healthy wine for those who buy and drink it.
The board and the founding members
The newly appointed president of Piwi Italy is Marco Stefanini, head of the Grapevine Genetics and Genetic Improvement Unit at the Research and Innovation Center of the Edmund Mach Foundation of San Michele all’Adige (TN). The Vice president is Riccardo Velasco, director of the Center for Research in Viticulture and Enology (CREA-VE) in Conegliano. The two appointments represent the trait d’union between two of the most important research institutes in our country and this combination reinforces Piwi Italia’s mission as research for genetic improvement, by inserting resistance genes into wine grape varieties, opens new and important scenarios for Italian viticulture.
The founding members are the presidents of the regional Piwi associations that exist today: Daniele Piccinin of the Le Carline winery in Pramaggiore (Ve) for Veneto, Thomas Niedermayr of the Hof Gandberg estate in Appiano sulla Strada del Vino for South Tyrol, Antonio Gottardi of the La-Vis and Valle di Cembra winery for Trentino, Stefano Gri of the Trezero winery in Valvasone (Pn) for Friuli Venezia Giulia, Alessandro Sala of Nove Lune di Cenate Sopra (Bg) for Lombardy and PierGuido Ceste of the eponymous winery in Govone (Cn) for Piedmont.
The goals of the association
“The goals of the new association,” explains Piwi Italy’s newly appointed president Marco Stefanini. are to raise awareness and broaden knowledge of resistant varieties and to lobby, including at the political level, for other regions to allow them with respect for regional peculiarities. Certainly the use of resistant varieties makes agronomic practice more sustainable since the resistances are natural. What we are trying to develop at the scientific level is more variability. Approximately 600 varieties of grape varieties are listed in the National Register of Vine Varieties. Vitis vinifera, the 36 Resistant Varieties currently in the National Register cannot replace 600 genotypes. Our research activities will have precisely the aim of making more and more resistant varieties available to winegrowers so that they can make the most of their land with the most suitable ones.”.
The Piwi in Italy
Piwi wines are a phenomenon that is growing in size and quality throughout Europe, now also in our country thanks to the official birth of the Piwi Italia association, which groups all the producers of resistant varieties in the country. “This is a historic moment for Italian viticulture,” Stefanini continued. -. Anyone who starts planting resistant varieties can join the association, which in fact now has more than 250 Italian producers“. Our country had a different path from other European states because the use of resistant varieties in vineyards was not authorized at the national level. Italy delegated to the regions, and some, such as Veneto, immediately took steps to plant these vines. They then gave permission for vintners to plant Piwi varieties: Trentino, South Tyrol, Lombardy, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Piedmont (the founding regions along with Veneto), Emilia Romagna, Marche, Abruzzo, Lazio and Campania. In terms of numbers, Veneto is the leading region followed by Friuli-Venezia Giulia, but with half as many licensed varieties as Veneto.
Healthiness and safeguarding environments
Viticulture, although it accounts for only 3 percent of Europe’s agricultural area, uses 65 percent of all fungicides used in agriculture, or 68 thousand tons/year(source Assoenologi/Vini e Viti Resistenti). The massive spread of pathogens, curbed by heavy chemical interventions so as not to jeopardize crops, increasingly clashes today with the new socio-economic concept of ecological transition, healthiness and environmental protection, and so in this context doing conventional viticulture becomes increasingly complicated. Hence Piwi Italia’s mission: the search for new, diverse and resistant varieties to ensure a sustainable and healthy future for agricultural activities as the key to respect for the vineyard, those who work in it and the wine to come.
It must then be considered that the climate changes currently underway will lead to the need to identify new varieties that are better adapted to the changing climatic conditions.
