This is the message that emerged from the conference organized by ONAV, the National Organization of Wine Tasters, at the Asti headquarters. A meeting whose protagonists were Vincenzo Gerbi, vice-president of the Academy of Vine and Wine, and Luigi Moio, president of the OIV, internationally renowned names who, courageously, combined the scientific approach with the humanistic one. A theme strongly supported by ONAV, as highlighted by president Vito Intini. << Founded in 1951, our organization was the first internationally to deal with wine culture and our mission is to spread knowledge to the general public while maintaining scientific rigor. In addition to training enthusiasts and technicians, in recent years our growing commitment is to combat the demonization of drinking that we are witnessing. For this reason we organized the 'In Vino Veritas' conference, in collaboration with the Medical Association of Milan, and with this same aim we promoted the 'Wine, Progress, Civilization' meeting to make people understand that wine is much more than an alcoholic drink . >>
The conference offered new elements of narration to the producers and journalists present at the meeting, moving away from the canonical description in technical terms, demonstrating how wine is a "bringer of civilisation". It has accompanied man since ancient times, so much so that, in the Bible, after the Universal Flood, Noah plants the vineyard, and not the wheat, as a sign of rebirth. A product with symbolic value but also vital utility. It was precisely by mixing wine and/or vinegar, natural disinfectants, with water that it was possible to hydrate safely. Thanks to alcohol it was possible to preserve foods, as described by Columella and, by studying wine, some of the most important scientific discoveries were made, crucial for the knowledge of microorganisms, creating the conditions for defeating diseases and increasing the average age of 'man.
Among the most important researches are those of Pasteur, who started from studies on wine and moved on to those of medicine. His experiments on fermentations made it possible to highlight the existence of microorganisms, but also took into consideration the bitartrate crystals in the barrels, hypothesizing that the shape of the matter was given by the molecules. Studies on microorganisms in wine and its "diseases" were the basis of other discoveries that revolutionized medicine. Even before Pasteur's discoveries, observations on alcoholic fermentation were the basis of important scientific advances, such as Lavoisier's hypotheses, nothing is created or destroyed but transformed, and the stoichiometric balance defined by Gay Lussac.
These are just a few examples of how the history of man is constantly intertwined with that of wine, and how alcohol is an important component in it, but not a distinctive element, as aromas and polyphenols are. In short, wine is an element that has always been decisive in man's life and which contains much more than simple alcohol. As Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner for physics and author of the masterpiece “Six Easy Pieces”, writes, there is “the whole universe in a glass of wine”.
