IN SICILY, THE WINERY SETTESOLI TRIED TO SAFEGUARD ITS ARTISTIC HERITAGE WITH A PROJECT TO COLLECT 500.000 EUROS FOR THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK IN SELINUNTE AND CAVE DI CUSA, BUT BUREAUCRACY HAS MIRED IT

Wine is not only a cornerstone of wine and food culture in Italy and the Mediterranean area, but it also protects its native territory and its archaeological and artistic heritage, including historical sites surrounded by extraordinary landscapes and vineyards. One of these is the marvelous archaeological Park in Selinunte and Cave di Cusa, in Sicily, right next to the Cantine Settesoli vineyards, which is one of the most important winemaking cooperatives in Italy, counting 2.000 associates and 6.000 hectares of vineyards.
The Park, like many other sites in Italy, is not exactly in the best of shape, which is why Vito Varvaro, President of Cantine Settesoli, decided in the summer of 2014 to promote a “public interest” project that would have raised more than 500.000 euros through fund raisings (50.000 euros pledged by the cooperative) to be used for maintaining, restoring and improving the Archaeological Park. And also, marketing proposals and public relations activities that would have made the name of the Park known, thanks also to the cooperative’s activities, around the world.
Unfortunately, more than a year after the launch of the project, we must still use the conditional tense because bureaucracy has done nothing short of making it impossible for the Settesoli Winery project to go forward. The biggest obstacles, after the first quick positive steps with the managers of the Archaeological Park of Selinunte and Cave of Cusa, and then the mayor of Castelvetrano, have come from the Region, where the project was halted.
In February, the project reached the Councilor of Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity’s desk, and to date, the project has been first "bounced" from one office to another, rejected due to changes in the Council management, and then the Council decided the project needed a public contest, so it was rewritten and resubmitted by a team of lawyers. Finally, the paradox of the past few weeks, where, despite a firm and crystallized national law in terms of sponsorship of cultural heritage, the Region of Sicily discovered it has a regulatory gap still to be filled, and without a regional regulation on the matter, the project cannot move forward. Now the documents are in the hands of the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, in the hopes that the project will finally see the light. Info: www.cantinesettesoli.it