Brunello is more and more sustainable: more than 50% of the vineyard is organic

The red color of Brunello di Montalcino, loved all over the world, in the glass; the green, that means sustainability, more and more intense in the vineyards of one of the most prestigious and green territories of the planet, that discovers itself to be one of those with a greater incidence of organic vineyards in Italy, with one vineyard out of two in organic regime, and more than 4 wineries out of 10 (106 out of 257 companies) converted (or in phase of conversion) to sustainable practice. This emerges from a study of the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino, on the data of the certifying bodies, for “Benvenuto Brunello” 2021, in a revised edition (like all the other “Anteprime di Toscana”) in time for Covid, that closes today (tasting the great vintages 2016 and Riserva 2015, that are flying on the market, together with Rosso di Montalcino 2019, Moscadello di Montalcino and Sant’Antimo, ed.), and “launches the sprint” to the “Brunello di Montalcino Wine Stage”, which will see the “Giro d’Italia” arrive on May 19th in the land of the great Italian red wine, among the beauty of white roads and vineyards, more and more sustainable. “We are satisfied with a transition that is turning out to be faster than expected - said the President of the Consortium, Fabrizio Bindocci - in Montalcino the vineyard has always played a role that respects the environment and represents only 15% of the rural areas, in a territory characterized by remarkable biodiversity with a wooded heritage that represents 50% of the total but also with olive groves (10%), arable land, pastures and other plantations. A trend, the organic one, which also has an economic rationale if we consider the purchase intentions by type of consumers in our key markets”. The survey underlines that Italian organic wine has grown by more than 100% in the last decade and, in terms of hectares, it is worth 25% of the global cultivated area. According to Sinab, in Italy the organic area (107,000 hectares) represents an average share of 16.5% of Italian vineyards, with an average annual growth of 7% in the last 5 years. Among the regions with the highest organic incidence (compared to the vineyard), Calabria wins (37.3%), followed by Marche (33.8%) and Sicily (30.9%). Tuscany, third absolute for number of hectares - is in fourth place with 24.4% of its regional cultivation certified organic and with Montalcino at 49.9%.

Focus - The market of Brunello di Montalcino does not know any crisis and, with the great vintages 2015 and 2016, it touches record numbers
The golden year for sales of Brunello di Montalcino continues in April 2021. The protagonist is the dream combination of the 2015 and 2016 vintages, able to mark in the moving year (May 2020 - April 2021) the absolute record in the recent history of the Docg of bands delivered for the bottles placed on the market. This is revealed, for "Benvenuto Brunello", by an analysis of the Consorzio del Brunello di Montalcino, on the State labels released by Valoritalia in the same period from 2008 to today. “Despite the difficulties that we all know about - said the President of the Consorzio, Fabrizio Bindocci - we managed to close 2020 very well, but we are recording the real exploit now: in the first 4 months of 2021 the increase (on the same period of 2020) is even 38%, but what stands out is also the +43% of State marks requested in the four months compared to the average of the three-year period 2018-2020. We are not stopping here, we are ready to accelerate on emerging markets, Far East in primis, and to consolidate the primacy in the U.S. and sales in Northern Europe, also strong with an increasingly evident organic trend, with half of the vineyard-Brunello certified or awaiting certification”.
In the forefront are the sales of Brunello 2016, which, from mid-November to today, has added up to 5.7 million bands delivered to the 250 companies of Montalcino, well over half of the entire production of the vintage. Even more relevant is the performance of the top range, with the Riserva 2015 that, in the first four-month period, increased its volumes (compared to the same period last year) by 583% and 95.5% on the average of the last three years. Good news also for Rosso di Montalcino, reported in growth of more than 7% at the beginning of the season and in recovery compared to the trend of the last three years (-0.3%). On the whole, the marks requested for Brunello di Montalcino by the members of the Consorzio (98% of the total) concern 93% of the cases of vine-growers-bottlers, while only 7% of the cases are registered for bottlers. With the two 5-star vintages, bottled wine stocks finally dropped by 40% from July 2020 to April 2021, against substantial stability of the bulk product in the cellar.