“Urban vineyards” at the center of the “National Day of Wine and Oil Culture”

Urban vineyards, which were an element typical of Italian landscape, but not only, represent today an extraordinary opportunity to rethink the bond between city and territory, between nature, people and community. And, for this reason, the bond between urban vineyards, regeneration of cities, and role of young people in this virtuous process in cultural, social, and economic terms will be the main theme of the “National Day of Wine and Oil Culture” 2025, on May, 23rd, in Sala Aldo Moro, headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Merit, in Rome, and, which reached, at this point, edition No. 15, promoted by Italian Association Sommelier (Ais), the greatest association of wine enthusiasts and experts of world wine (with over 40,000 members, and 2,000 events every here distributed in 146 delegations on all the national territory), which, since more than 50 years, promotes and spreads wine culture through education, and a rich editorial activity, and supported by the Ministry of Education and Merit, by the Ministry of Culture, and by the Ministry of Agriculture. Which will be opened at the meeting “Vigne urbane, giovani e rigenerazione delle città” - “Urban vineyards, young people and regeneration of cities”.
President Ais Sandro Camilli and the greetings by Institutions will introduce the meeting, to which the contributions by Mauro Agnoletti, holder of the Unesco Chair “Paesaggi del Patrimonio Agricolo” - “Landscapes of Agricultural Heritage” at the University of Florence will follow, who will propose a reflection about the evolution of urban wine lanscape from XIX century up to today, in his analysis “I vigneti in città: il caso di Firenze” - “Vineyards in the city: the case of Florence”, by Ernesto Di Renzo, professor di of Tate Anthropology, and Anthropology of cultural and food heritage of Roma Tor Vergata University, who, on th contrary, will intervene about the theme “Vinificare in città. Un progetto retro-innovativo per il ripensamento funzionale e culturale degli spazi urbani” - “Vinify in the city: a retro-innovative project for the functional and cultural reconsideration of urban spaces”: an anthropological exploration about how the rediscovery of ancient agricultural practices in new contexts can bring to understand the symbolic, identity, and social value of food and wine, also in the heath of our metropolises, and rethink urban spaces, and, to follow  Nicola Martinelli, of Politecnico of Bari where he is Professor of City Planning, and Member of the High Council for Cultural and Landscape Heritage at the Ministry of Culture who will analyze the difficulties of the dynamics between metropolitan areas and rural territories, and Nicola Purrello, president of Urban Vineyards Association (Uva), who will present, for the first time, the results of study “World Urban Vineyards Atlas”, which identified 151 isolated vineyards in 35 world countries for a dimension of over 600 hectares, 108 of them are located in Europe.
Italy, which safeguards treasures such as San Martino Vineyard, in Naples, facing the sea, or Leonardo da Vinci Vineyard, in the earth of Milan, Queen Vineyard, in Turin, Rooster Vineyard in Palermo, San Francesco della Vigna, in Venice, or Michelangelo Vineyard, in Florence, just to give some examples, is the country with the highest number of urban vineyards, followed by Czech Republic, and France, which represent an important employment for agricultural workers committed in the cure of the vineyard, but also through the activities linked to enotourism, and restoration, which are often linked. Then, many vineyards have social implications, with various chiefs of cooperatives involving people with disability. But, looking to the future, after the award of winning classes of edition 2024, the presentation of Ais scholarships will be held, aiming to students of the fourth and fifth year of Agrarian Institutes, Technical Economic Institutes with Touristic Address, and Professional Institutes for Services of Food and Wine, and Hotel Hospitality of the second cycle.
Students will be called, for edition 2025, to elaborate the theme of “Vigne urbane e rigenerazione delle città” - “Urban vineyards, and city regeneration” so that to allow them to deepen the concepts discusses in the current edition of the National Day. The guidelines of the new edition of the Scholarship, and winners of the past edition will be presented by Giuseppe Baldassarre, Ais Scientific Technical Committee, and Domenico Zonin, president Zonin1821, which, for the first time, decided to support the National Day of Wine Culture 2025, putting at disposal spaces and know-how for the development of projects in involved schools.