From genetic improvement to sustainability, the transformation of the wine paradigm

To increase the sustainability of the wine sector and cope with climate change, it is necessary to make the vines resistant, with the help of genetic improvement, and to change the production regulations, which will be integrated with rules relating to sustainability which, thanks to the Certificazione Unica di Sostenibilità of the wine sector, will become a fundamental part of the quality of the wines. Sustainability is the center of attention for all activities, from production to marketing, but in the agri-food sector, it was the wine sector that was the first to refer to sustainability not only from an environmental point of view, but also from an economic, social, and ethical point of view. And if in the beginning, the focus was the reduction of chemical inputs, with the advance of climate change the attention has extended to the efficient use of production factors and natural resources less and less available and “worn out” by agricultural activity, such as water and land, and the adoption of technologies to achieve these goals. Objectives that can be achieved thanks to research that sees closely public and private links, in the context of national projects and a unique and specific certification of sustainability in viti-enology. This is the topic of the last cultural meeting of the “Liber & Lectio”, promoted by the Scientific Council of the “La Vigna” Library.
The achievement of climate neutrality in 2050, through the 50% reduction of the use of pesticides, 20% of fertilizers and the extension of the agricultural organic area by 25%, as set by the European Green Deal, requires a change of paradigm. “To achieve sustainable, competitive and efficient growth - underlined Attilio Scienza of the University of Milan and scientific advisor of the “La Vigna” Library - it is not possible to continue to solve the vines defense from diseases with chemistry. The alternative is a genetic improvement that can also give answers to the environmental stresses caused by climate change. Genetic solutions still find much resistance today, as has already happened with rootstocks as a remedy against the tragedy of phylloxera. Genetics was a taboo, a diabolical tool, until the beginning of the twentieth century, when the application of Mendel’s theories and the production of first-generation hybrids between vinifera and American resistant vines began, quality of which was very modest, and not capable of replacing the glorious traditional varieties. Then the genetics took a slowdown due to the Great War first and then the Depression of the 1920s and, again, the Second World War. In the 1960s the recovery and, thanks to the recurring crossbreeding technique for 6 cycles (which consists in continuing to cross the first-generation hybrid, the parent of vinifera ed), after 15-20 years the establishment of tolerant varieties and after another 10 years their commercialization. A very long time that currently, being able to count on resistant parents obtained from 5-6 cycles of recurrent crossbreeding identical to the vinifera, require the investment of only about 100,000 euros. Here, never as today, we have to make our own the motto of the Georgofili academy “Prosperitati publice augendae”, “work in the public interest”, joining forces between public and private in favor of public utility. The University and research institutions alone cannot take on the necessary investments. This opens the great prospect of obtaining many resistant Italian indigenous grape varieties. Today we have some referable to international varieties and a few indigenous ones, such as Nosiola, Teroldego, Tocai and the upcoming Glera. The scarce availability of interesting resistant indigenous varieties is one of the reasons why there are few Regions that have authorized them, which are actually concentrated in the North-East”, says more Attilio Scienza.
The other difficulties reside in the registration in the National Register of Varieties in a special category, “with the marginal limitation”, and therefore in Italy, despite the EU’s green light for the use of resistant members of the European vine to produce wines with designation of origin, we cannot use them, unlike in other countries such as France and Spain. Then there are the bureaucratic constraints: prior to authorization for cultivation, experimentation is required in each area. “In order to use them, it is first necessary that they be moved to the Variety Register as a “vinifera”- continues Scienza - in the meantime in the Igt, as a “test bench”, as did the province of Bolzano. In addition, the “principle of contiguity” could be used, which makes it possible to request authorization for vines already tested in the contiguous region in a kind of domino that accelerates their diffusion”. In France, considering these new hybrids in all respects belonging to the wine species, they have registered them in the National Catalog of the variety without limitations of use, and allow them in the Aoc, as is already the case in Champagne and Bordeaux. But not only. The French have a national program of enhancing the regional grape varieties.
“Their goal - explains Attilio Scienza - is the creation of resistant quality varieties, to make France the reference point for the production of wines with low environmental impact. They aim to obtain total and lasting resistance to the main diseases because simple tolerance is not compatible with a drastic reduction in treatments. We too need a national strategy and communication that knows how to decline the guiding words of wine around resistant vines: territory, environmental sustainability, climate change and indigenous vines, where by autochthonous we mean the best interaction between vine and place of cultivation, because the resisters give very different wines depending on the cultivation environment, and therefore zone studies must be carried out and as a result the wines and not the vines to be communicated”.
The revolution possible thanks to genetics, beyond the use of Tea - Tecniche di Evoluzione Assistita, may come to the use of “interfering Rna”, capable of blocking the gene that makes the plant vulnerable to disease, simply by spraying it on the plants. “This is an easily possible perspective - concludes Scienza - because the interfering RNAs, once identified, can be produced with the same technology used for vaccines against Covid. The leap in quality would be enormous, but even in this case research cannot be left alone”.
In a context of rapid evolution of the climate, varieties and production methods towards increasingly sustainable models, the same production regulations must evolve and must also include certification of sustainability, an aspect that has also been involved for some time. Valoritalia, a body that certifies 60% of denomination wines in Italy. “The denominations of origin - explained Giuseppe Liberatore, CEO of Valoritalia - are areas characterized by the combination of elements that determine the optimal conditions to produce fine wines. The production regulations that regulate them were conceived and written some time ago and aim to preserve these conditions, which are changing significantly. Climate changes alter the pedoclimatic conditions which confer the characteristics of uniqueness and identity to the denominations. For example, from our large observatory, from the analysis of each batch of wine with the denomination, we have recorded in the last 15 years an increase of 2 degrees alcohol in some areas of Central Italy. It is obvious that adaptation and mitigation strategies must be put in place, and we believe that in this perspective the regulations will have to redefine the production processes and consequently the certification bodies will have to adapt. The elements to be verified will change, from cultivation techniques to organoleptic analysis. At the end of last December, the European Union Regulation no. 2117 in which for the first time it is written that it will be possible to insert sustainability rules in the production regulations. Until now this had been a taboo, while now the Ministry will implement the Regulation, which also clarifies exactly what is meant by sustainability, and companies will have to develop innovative and measurable procedures and methods”.
The sustainability certifications adopt a collective and integrated approach, they are the result of shared strategies that can be applied on a large scale. They are based on objective criteria, so they can be validated by a third party that verifies and monitors compliance, adoption and effectiveness and through the affixing of a trademark, they allow to add value to the product. Furthermore, the climate change adaptation and mitigation indices that will arise from the monitoring of data and “footprints” will allow the identification of any critical issues and opportunities for improving the strategies implemented.
“In Italy, the offer of green certifications in the wine sector is quite various - underlines Liberatore -. Organic farming has been regulated at a European level for 30 years and is growing rapidly in Italy. In a decade, from 2010 to 2020, organic hectares have grown by + 124.5%, from 52,273 hectares to 117,378. Then we have the Sistema Qualità Nazionale Produzione Integrata - Sqnpi, which certifies integrated production, and the very recent Certificazione Unica di Sostenibilità of the wine sector, established by Law 77/2020 in article 224 Ter, with the dm of the establishment of the Committee that will develop it. the specification. It is an absolute novelty at European level, a national public sustainable wine brand recognizable by consumers. It is based on Sqnp but has the prospect of being supplemented by other certifications for fingerprints, such as the Viva calculator of the Ministry of the Environment, and on Equalitas, the most important national and international standard based on the three pillars environmental, economic, and ethical-social sustainability. This Certificazione Unica from 2023 will also extend to other agri-food chains. We will work to adapt Equalitas and be able to transmit it primarily on extra virgin olive oil”.
The value of the Equalitas standard, which was born in 2014, thanks to a survey on the existing in terms of sustainability assessment – Federdoc leader with Valoritalia and Gambero Rosso -, lies in being an effective certification that has a sustainability report as its output in general. “The value of Equalitas - explains Stefano Stefanucci, Equalitas director - is internationally recognized. In 2019, the 5 Monopolies of Northern Europe and the Swiss retailer Denner commissioned a study to Intertek to evaluate 35 sustainability projects judged to be the “main” in the world and the Equalitas protocol obtained the best score. In Norway, it was included among the “ethical” projects that give the right to place wines from certified companies on dedicated shelves of the Vinmonopolet points of sale, the national monopoly. In Finland it is on the list of Green ChoiceL Projects and, here too, Equalitas certified wines are entitled to be placed on dedicated shelves, as well as in Sweden, from 1 March 2022 and with an additional recognizable logo affixed to the individual bottles. And again, it has had awards in Belgium and the Netherlands, in Canada in Quebec and in the UK. We have also started partnerships with various international certification bodies and activated mutual recognition of the respective protocols to simplify and rationalize certification operations to avoid companies having to submit themselves to the judgment of various arbitrators several times”.
Clementina Palese