Santalucia 2025: Maculan and the Eye Bank Foundation against ocular diseases

The Maculan farm in Breganze (Vicenza) and the Veneto Eye Bank Foundation ETS have officially inaugurated the 17th edition of the Santalucia solidarity project.
On Wednesday 28 October, at the company headquarters, the tasting panel took place to select blind wines. Santalucia 2025. Food and wine critics, journalists, entrepreneurs and members of the institutions tasted six samples and chose, for the first time in the history of Santalucia , a PIWI wine barrique, from which 300 solidarity bottles will be produced, unique and numbered examples, to support the Foundation's research into eye diseases.

“ Santalucia 2025 is good for the eyes, but also for the environment!” explains Fausto Maculan , owner of the winery. “This year, in fact, the commission selected the sample from PIWI grapes, vines resistant to fungal diseases that require fewer treatments in the vineyard. We planted these varieties in 2007 with the aim of increasing our sustainable approach to viticulture, and year after year they are giving us great results. The grape varieties are Cabernet Volos and Merlot Khorus , vinified in small steel vats and then aged in oak barrels. The Santalucia 2025 wine boasts an intense aroma of red fruit, is rich and rounded on the palate, with a freshness and tannins that promise a long life and a fascinating evolution.”

"Thanks to Fausto Maculan and the Maculan company," says Diego Ponzin , President of the Fondazione Banca degli Occhi, "for seventeen years, the Santalucia project has provided us with an opportunity to meet supporters committed to the goals of research and friends from the business world who support the Fondazione Banca degli Occhi, in a synergy between scientific innovation and social responsibility. This year, the goal is ambitious and concerns a project to treat retinal diseases , the leading cause of blindness in the Western world."

The proceeds from the distribution of the 300 bottles will go to the LUCY Project ( Lineage-guided Use of Cell-derived therapy for Yield improvement in age-related macular degeneration). The study was launched in collaboration with the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, USA, and inspired by the work of 2012 Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka. This collaboration stems from the Fondazione Banca degli Occhi's long experience in cell therapy, which aims to reprogram a patient's blood cells into healthy retinal epithelial cells for a disease that will have an increasingly significant impact on the population in the near future.

This year, Santalucia 's artistic vision will be officially unveiled at a charity dinner at Le Calandre restaurant in Sarmeola di Rubano (Padua), scheduled for December 10th. The signature project features 300 unique, hand-painted labels curated by the In.Perfetto atelier of the Vite Vere Down DADI social cooperative in Padua, a professional training center for people with intellectual disabilities.

Bottles can be reserved now by contacting Fondazione Banca degli Occhi (info@fbov.it and 041.9656440/442).