AN APPEAL IN DEFENSE OF THE TYPICALNESS AND INTEGRITY OF ITALIAN WINE BY JOURNALISTS MARCO ARTURI AND SANDRO SANGIORGI. SUSTAINERS: “VINI VERI”, “VINNATUR” (ANGIOLINO MAULE), “TRIPLE A”, “RENAISSANCE DES AOC ITALIA”…

On the heels of the “Brunello case”, and the consequent attacks on Italian wine and industrial wineries, the “resistant part” of the Italian wine world has united, for the first time ever, against all projects geared towards conforming to models imposed by the globalized market and in defense of a viticulture that respects the laws of the territory.
Viticulturalists and winemakers, independent journalists and illuminated merchants have joined against an establishment that gives precedence to the needs of marketing over the social, economic, and cultural values of wine.
In support of this initiative an appeal has been created to unite forces from the “resistant part” of the Italian winemaking world, against projects that are designed only to adapt to the demands of the market and little else.
The appeal, written by Marco Arturi and Sandro Sangiorgi (www.porthos.it), defends the validity of the disciplines of production (which had been questioned by “opinion leaders”), requests increased attention by controlling authorities, emphasizes the risks attached to an incorrect globalization that aims at imposing the leveling of differences and the depreciation of the capacities of farmers. It also renews the call for respect of the land and the territory, which cannot be disconnected from worries for the health of consumers.
The list of the first people to have signed the appeal, which for the first time ever reunites the main subjects that have long worked in the defense of the typicalness and integrity of Italian wine, includes groups like Vini Veri (headed by Teobaldo Cappellano), the association VinNatur (presided over by Angiolino Maule), the selection Triple A (by Luca Gargano), and Renaissance des Aoc Italia (created by Nicolas Joly and coordinated by Stefano Bellotti). There are also Italian wine sector journalists who have adhered to the appeal, as well as independent producers, top level enologists and merchants.
The appeal, which has been translated below, can be signed at www.porthos.it.
The Appeal – In Defense of the Identity of Italian Wine The vicissitudes regarding the cases of presumed violation of the Brunello di Montalcino discipline has supplied the latest of many excuses to attack the uniqueness of the history of Italian wines.
The theorists of homogenization were the ones to start the offensive, the rampant liberalism applied to the winemaking sector, of that modern misunderstanding that desires all enological products to conform to the canons of market demand. But who are these people? On the website Porthos n. 28, the article “Il Mostruoso Equivoco”, speaks of a true establishment, created by consultants, industrial wineries, as well as small and medium sized producers, critics and opinion leaders. They are united by the conviction that wine is the fruit of a protocol that is applicable anywhere. And it is not by chance that many of them are some of the industrial and biotech industries’ best customers.
Taking advantage of a moment of great media confusion, these men explain that the problem is not fraud – working outside of the law and fooling the consumer – but rather the entire system of shared rules. They speak of the obsoleteness of production disciplines, sustaining the inevitability of the recourse to “improved” vineyards in order to render Italian wines more competitive, and claim the use of the most prestigious denominations without any respect for their history, traditions, and the work that has contributed in creating a myth.
They almost always express themselves without debate and find ample resonance in various organs of the national press; thus their declarations assume the value of inviolable rules for the health of the entire enological sector. For those, who, like us, consider wine a cultural heritage and a nutriment of the spirit, all of this is unacceptable.
The production disciplinaries were created with the goal of safeguarding and guaranteeing the identity and integrity of Italian wines. In the past 40 years, with the complicity and the inattentiveness of controlling authorities, some of the most important territories have been treated like containers to be filled, occupied or enlarged immoderately.
In many places, the vineyards have been transformed from specialized cultivation to dominant cultivation, cutting out varieties and landscapes. We have witnessed an invasion of allochthonous grapes with the goal of “improving” Italian specialties and creating products that are easier to consume, without paying mind to the emptying out of content that has now occurred to many wines.
The establishment continues to modify the disciplines without any planning but by photographing, time after time, the changes that are proposed by the market. All of this in the name of an immediate economic return and to adapt to the changing whims of the market. A grave error from an ethical point of view but also in economic terms: the standardization of our wines causes, as a direct consequence for the medium-long term, a fall in sales and tourist attraction created by the production zones.
To give back some credibility to the disciplines and to recuperate the spirit of those who created them, it is necessary to conduct a restrictive campaign, updating and improving the rules and controls in order to adapt them to new systems that the establishment now uses to bypass them.
At this point, winemaking companies can utilize systemic products that, progressively, take the life out of the land and vineyards; when making wine they don’t begrudge yeasts, bacteria, and enzymes selected by biotechnology; as well, these substances are authorized, justified by a supposed enological origin that should fix the liquid. All of these actions make vain the concept of territoriality.
The latest laws have authorized the controlling consortiums, created by these same companies, to make the verifications on the correspondence between wines and their respective disciplines but the situation has not improved, given that in Italy production has still not assumed the maturity to move ahead with serious self-control.
Wine is work, sociality, and commerce. Globalization represents an opportunity when it allows for the acquaintance and confrontation of products that are an expression of different cultures and territories; it is, instead, a danger when the leveling of variety is imposed, the depreciation of territoriality, the substitution of work and the capacity of farmers with industrial and alchemistic manipulation.
For this reason, we who produce, talk about, sell, study, love Italian wine, repeat our contrariness to all hypotheses of denaturalizing denominations, both through the efforts of allochthonous varietals as well as through practices that have the goal of making our wine something different from what it is. The strength of Italian wine resides in the complexity of the varieties that represent the resources to be valorized, instead of sacrificing them in the name of presumed demands by globalized tastes.
We therefore propose to now dedicate an increased effort – which was already solidifying thanks to the love with which many signers of this appeal have organized demonstrations, conventions, internships, courses, and tastings – in preparing an awareness and information campaign in defense of the identity of our wine, certain that this is the only viable path for safeguarding and continuing the appreciation of it all over the world.
Marco Arturi and Sandro Sangiorgi
The First Signers...
Sandro Sangiorgi and Porthos
Teobaldo Cappellano and Vini Veri
Angiolino Maule and Vin Natur
Luca Gargano - Velier Triple A
Stefano Bellotti - Renaissance Italia
Francesco Paolo Valentini - producer
Maria Teresa Mascarello - producer
Corrado Dottori - producer
Luigi Anania - producer
Carlo Noro – biodynamic farmer
Franco Ziliani - journalist
Roberto Giuliani - Lavinium
Marco Arturi - journalist
Andrea Scanzi – journalist and writer
Paolo Massobrio and Club di Papillonv Sergio Rossi – wine shop owner
Remigio Bordini - agronomist
Michele Lorenzetti - enologist
Maurizio Castelli - enologist