PIWI Italia officially becomes an association, the sustainable revolution in vineyards begins. After the signing of the statute during the national PIWI Wines event in Venice at the Hotel Carlton on the Gran Canal in Venice, the PIWI Italia association, created with the aim of promoting vines resistant to fungal diseases and producing increasingly less impactful wines, was has been formally established and will hold its first meeting in the spring. The articles of association were registered at the Revenue Agency on Friday 12 January. The headquarters of PIWI Italia has also been decided and will be at the Edmund Mach Foundation in San Michele all'Adige (TN).
Piwi vines ("pilzwiderstandsfähig" in German) are natural crosses between European vinifera and other vitis of American and/or Asian origins carrying resistance genes and therefore are plants capable of defending themselves from the main vine diseases. This means greater eco-compatibility with the surrounding environment, greater protection of the consumer's health, improvement in the quality of life of those who work in the vineyard and those who live around the vineyard and reduction of CO2 emissions for a healthy wine for those who purchase it and drinks it.
The new president of PIWI Italia is Marco Stefanini, head of the Vine Genetics and Breeding Unit at the Research and Innovation Center of the Edmund Mach Foundation in San Michele all'Adige (TN). The vice president is Riccardo Velasco, director of the Research Center in Viticulture and Oenology (CREA-VE) of Conegliano. The two appointments represent the trait d'union between two of the most important research institutes present in our country and this combination strengthens the mission of PIWI Italia as research for genetic improvement, inserting resistance genes into vine varieties wine, opens new and important scenarios for Italian viticulture. The founding members are the presidents of the regional Piwi associations that exist today: Daniele Piccinin of the Azienda Agricola Le Carline of Pramaggiore (Ve) for the Veneto, Thomas Niedermayr of the Hof Gandberg estate of Appiano sulla Strada del Vino for Alto Adige, Antonio Gottardi of the Cantina La-Vis and Valle di Cembra for Trentino, Stefano Gri of the Cantina Trezero of Valvasone (Pn) for Friuli Venezia Giulia, Alessandro Sala of Nove Lune of Cenate Sopra (Bg) for Lombardy and PierGuido Ceste of the company of the same name of Govone (Cn) for Piedmont.
«The objectives of the new association - explains the new president of PIWI Italia Marco Stefanini - are to raise awareness and expand knowledge of resistant varieties and to put pressure, also at a political level, so that other regions authorize them in compliance with regional peculiarities. The use of resistant varieties certainly makes the agronomic practice more sustainable given that the resistances are natural. What we are trying to develop on a scientific level is greater variability. Approximately 600 varieties of Vitis vinifera are registered in the National Register of Vine Varieties, the 36 Resistant Varieties currently present in the National Register cannot replace 600 genotypes. Our research activity will have the aim of making an ever-increasing number of resistant varieties available to winemakers in order to best enhance their territory with the most suitable ones."
Piwi wines are a phenomenon that is growing throughout Europe in size and quality, now also in our country thanks to the official birth of the PIWI Italia association which brings together all the producers of resistant varieties in the national territory. «It is a historic moment for Italian viticulture - continues Stefanini -. Anyone who starts planting resistant varieties can join the association which in fact now has more than 250 Italian producers." Our country has had a different path from other European states because the use of resistant varieties in vineyards has not been authorized at a national level. Italy has delegated the regions and some, like Veneto, immediately worked to plant these vineyards. They then gave authorization to the winemakers to plant the PIWI varieties: Trentino, Alto Adige, Lombardy, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Piedmont (the founding regions together with Veneto), Emilia Romagna, Marche, Abruzzo, Lazio and Campania. In terms of numbers, Veneto is the region that dominates followed by Friuli-Venezia Giulia, but with half the authorized varieties compared to Veneto.
Viticulture, although it represents only 3% of the European agricultural surface, uses 65% of all fungicides used in agriculture, i.e. 68 thousand tonnes/year (source Assoenologi/Vini e Viti Resistenza). The massive spread of pathogenic agents, stemmed by heavy chemical interventions so as not to compromise harvests, clashes today more and more with the new socio-economic concept of ecological transition, healthiness and environmental protection and therefore in this context conventional viticulture becomes increasingly complicated. Hence the mission of PIWI Italia: the search for new, different and resistant varieties to guarantee a sustainable and healthy future for agricultural activities as the keystone for respecting the vineyard, those who work there and the wine to come.
We must then consider that the climate changes currently underway will lead to the need to identify new varieties that better adapt to the changed conditions.
