Prosecco Consortium ramps up sustainable initiatives

By James Lawrence

Published: 07 February, 2022

The Prosecco DOC Consortium has announced a series of ongoing and new projects to address key sustainability issues, in addition to a renewed focus on terroir zoning and encouraging biodiversity.

According to the Consortium, “The projects are targeted toward vineyards and wineries within the region to help them implement, along the production process, the necessary measures to overcome, step by step, environmental and long-term productivity issues, as well as those of ethical, social and economic responsibility. These initiatives involve different areas of intervention within aspects of the supply chain.”

The Prosecco DOC winegrowing area currently spans nine provinces in the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions. The consortium is undertaking a study project to “identify homogeneous areas and further enhance the concept of terroir”.

Alongside the pre-existing zoning boundaries, new remote sensing techniques are also being introduced. These technologies can reportedly contribute to large-scale analyses by monitoring and differentiating the state of climate and soil at strategic times, with repercussions on vineyard management.

“The ultimate goal is to characterize the DOC, creating a viticultural management model for each homogeneous area identified, which includes the development of models of sustainable cultivation. All this is considered in relation to climate change, one of the major issues for the world of wine today,” said a representative from the DOC.

Stefano Zanette, president of the Prosecco DOC Consortium, added: “We are working on a sustainable management system of the entire production chain based on the Standard Equalitas, but also on a protocol that could support wineries to achieve a con-tinuous improvement of their winemaking processes, elevating products and territory.”

Meanwhile, another project led by the consortium is Mosaico Verde, promoted by AzzeroCO2 and Legambiente. This program aims to increase Italy’s biodiversity by plant-ing 300,000 new trees, along with protecting 30,000 hectares of existing forest.

In addition, a “bee bio-monitoring” project is in development as an environmental indicator. The aim is to establish a communication and data sharing network between farmers, beekeepers and public authorities. The network is being designed to monitor the activities of bees in wine-growing areas, making it possible to analyse environmental conditions, including beyond the virticulture itself, in order to subsequently identify improvement techniques to be introduced in management protocols.

“The Prosecco DOC Consortium’s commitment to environmental, economic, and social sustainability is constantly evolving to meet new goals for continuous improvement,” said Zanette.

“The DOC Consortium, in collaboration with the software-house Apra and its partners Enogis and Analysis, has developed a digital system bringing together vineyards and win-eries data, which is sent to a carbon and water-footprint calculator connected to the Consortium’s platform. This system allows us to calculate the environmental indicators of the Denomination, as well as the ones of each individual vineyard or winery.”

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