CONSORZIO VINI ALTO ADIGE RESPONDS TO THE COVID-19 EMERGENCY BY REDUCING YIELDS FROM THE YEAR 2020 TO ENHANCE THE TERRITORY AND ITS VINE-GROWERS

The proposal to lower yields starting from the 2020 vintage by a percentage between 15 and 30% was approved on 15.06.2020 by the General Assembly of the Alto Adige Wine Consortium , with over 70% of votes in favor. , depending on the grape variety considered. "The reduction in yields - explains the Director of the Alto Adige Wine Consortium Eduard Bernhart - has a double effect because, if on the one hand it has already been carried out independently by many wineries in the area for years, which have understood the importance of a drop of production in order to obtain higher quality wines, on the other we expect it to give breath to all those companies that have experienced a significant drop in the market due to Covid-19. To cope with this situation we also listened from other territories and we have put forward this proposal which is therefore part of a moment of marked change in the markets, where it was necessary to act quickly and proactively to support South Tyrolean winemakers in the particular context we are experiencing ". The proposal was presented to the General Assembly of the Consortium by a Committee set up ad hoc and made up of several local winemakers in collaboration with the "Südtiroler Beratungsring" , the South Tyrol Fruit Growing Consulting Center . The decision to reduce yields stems from the intent to protect South Tyrolean viticulture and proves to be a strategic action aimed at safeguarding the great work done in recent decades . The intent is to make South Tyrolean wine an excellence that is always up to the challenge of dealing with the great wine-growing areas of the world and able to testify to a large extent the great quality of Made in South Tyrol. Thanks to the innovative thinking of important personalities of South Tyrolean viticulture, today South Tyrol is among the most recognized wine areas of Italy and the world. The quality process that began more than thirty years ago is now defined today with the approval of a proposal that has as its primary objective the preservation and research of the highest quality of wines.