About Wine, Ethics, Environment and Tradition

 In all of these years spent in the world of wine, I had extraordinary chances, I tasted thousands of different wines, both of magnificent value and pretty modest ones, however all useful in order to better understand the beverage of Bacchus. I met a lot of people working in the world of wine as well as genuine and passionate wine lovers, including people of indisputable wine making and viticultural competence: each of them taught me something, I thank them all. With many of them I have a sincere feeling of esteem and friendship, something enriching and making even more precious the simple relationship between professionals who work for wine, although with different goals. It happens quite frequently, in fact, I take advantage of their patience, asking them questions in order to understand their point of view about wine and viticulture, also for my very personal benefit, of course.

 I like, in fact, every time I can, to listen to the people who work in the world of wine, those who really make wine and sincerely appreciate it, not just because it is part of their job. To listen to the passionate words of vintners and wine makers, I always get the very same factors, common in all cases: the passion for their job and wine, the will to offer a quality and sound product, the respect for territory and environment. I am aware that some, by reading these words, would disagree with what I am saying, in particular when they are considered according to certain “wine making visions”. In particular, I am talking about the “absolute” vision sometimes expressed by producers and wine lovers, so strong and indisputable, they are fiercely opposed to every way of interpreting wine but theirs.

 I am not talking about any specific “wine making vision”, being aware of the fact each of them, considered in their own principles, are all “exact”, capable of expressing an indisputable wine making method and philosophy. I do not want to get into anyone of them, although I see behaviors and thoughts not so different from religions or ideological and political views: I keep on believing wine is superior to all those poor and frivolous matters. I have always considered wine as the expression of the people making it and, as a consequence, their vision of territory and grapes: wine, without the intervention of man, would not exist. It undeniably is a beverage made for our own pleasure and there is no other reason which could justify its existence, as wine does not have any biological or evolutionary use both for vine and land.

 I frequently realize that for wine, more than any other product pertaining to agriculture, they tend to be more exacting and rigorous, even more intransigent and fundamentalist. They express pretty rigid considerations and demand impeccable “moral conducts”, both according to environment and technical views, something hardly seen in other aspects of agriculture. They demand wine to be respectful for health and environment, it must follow strict viticultural and wine making methods, giving origin to certain factions rejecting all the rest, most of the times considered not so healthy and even dangerous. Wine is required, virtually with no exception, to represent the tradition of a culture and of a territory: innovation is sometimes seen as an adulteration detrimental to the traditions of past times instead of being seen as an ameliorative element.

 Wine frequently suffers the burden of tradition, a dead weight forcing it to live in a time not existing anymore but, because of nostalgic reasons, we like to keep it alive. We should remember a tradition simply is a successful innovation and, at its times, it has been capable of replacing another tradition. We call it progress and it is what allowed us to be here and it is the reason why modern wine is different from the one made by ancient Romans. Also for phytosanitary treatments in vineyards can be seen, more or less, the same behavior. According to tradition, the treatment done by using sulfur and copper sulfate represents the foundation of a genuine viticulture and respectful both for health and environment. Nevertheless, copper is a heavy metal and it is not that simple to discharge it from the soil when it has been absorbed. I received many times this food for thought: who is spoiling the environment more, the one who is applying ten treatments of sulfur and copper sulfate, or the one who applies just one and by using other phytosanitary products?

 I hear many objecting on the fact modern phytosanitary products are the expression of chemistry and, as such, they are certainly dangerous for our health. This can also be true - after all, I am not an expert in this sense and I have no competence to deny that - nevertheless, I do not think sulfur and copper and healthy substances for our body as well. There is something that, in any case, I could understand from the words of producers and wine makers with whom I had the pleasure to listen to their opinions about wine: they all are respectful for their territory, vine and environment. They all are aware of the responsibility about offering their clients a sound and quality product, by respecting, first of all, their vineyard, as it is the place where their job originates from. Besides of this, all of them have their own vision on how reaching this goal, both as an ethical and technical point of view, they all however give absolute priority to vineyards and territory, how to keep them and respect them the best possible way. And of all the frivolous things I see around the world of wine, I believe this to be the most concrete and sustainable one.