Edmund Mach Foundation at San Michele all’Adige and Banfi Agricultural Company at Montalcino signed a development and technological cooperation agreement in the field of wine variety improvement. It will be presented at Vinitaly and be soon activated. It involves the creation of an experimental field in Tuscany. There eight prototypes of new varieties will be grown. It is about 6,750 plants placed in two fields of two hectares each. Further varieties will follow in order to assess the oenological potential and obtain the inclusion in the list of grape varieties for planting vineyards in Tuscany.
The goal is to make viticulture more and more sustainable and thus reduce the environmental impact. Marco Stefanini, responsible person of the unit that studies genetic improvement of vine, said: ‘We researchers are interested to observe the behaviour of selected genotypes in different environments, enriching our knowledge, and transfer them to other environments’.
Rudy Buratti, chief oenologist at Banfi, says: ‘For us, the preservation of our cultural and environmental heritage has been a reference point since the beginning. And today, when the concept of sustainability is much more felt by increasingly demanding and informed consumers, the interest in these eco-friendly varieties is growing. This experimentation will allow diversifying defence strategies, and therefore new production protocols.
