Heroic vineyards, Prosecco Hills has asked Veneto to give automatic recognition to everyone

The goal is to simplify and therefore speed up the procedure to acknowledge as “historic and heroic vineyards” all the vineyards in the Unesco heritage territories. The Association of the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene has sent the request to the Veneto Region, also proposing to speed up the procedure. “Following the signing of the recent interministerial decree establishing the importance of protecting historic and heroic vineyards, we request the Veneto Region to simplify the application for all the vineyards within the Unesco site of the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene to receive the recognition, so that each producer does not have to send in an individual application. Taking into consideration that the region already has all the relative data to the vineyards and wine producers in the area, a simplified procedure would be advantageous economically for the producers as well as for the regional offices.
“It is the best path to take”, said the Association for the Protection of the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene Unesco site.
The Association, led by the president, Marina Montedoro, also pointed out that based on the interministerial decree referring to protecting the vineyards, signed on June 30, 2020, the procedure to receive recognition must be managed by each Region that must prepare a list of historic and heroic vineyards in each of its territories, based on the requests the wine producers have presented. Vineyards considered heroic are required to have precise characteristics. They must be located in areas at high water stress risk, or where the orographic condition hinder mechanization; they must be in areas of environmental and prestigious landscapes; the slope of the land must be higher than 30%; altitude must be higher than 500 meter asl and the vineyards must be terraced. The historic vineyards, instead, are part of territories registered in the National Register of historic Rural Landscapes and those pertaining to areas that have received the Unesco recognition of exceptional universal value, where the criterium to be included on the Unesco list is related exclusively to viticulture.
“All the vineyards included in the Unesco site of the Prosecco hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene”, said the president, Marina Montedoro, “have at least one, if not all, of the requisites of an area recognized as heritage of humanity for viticulture. Every single vine can therefore be considered “historic and heroic”.