Sustainable Wine: Magis Handbook

How to produce a sustainable wine? Magis Sustainability Handbook responds.


Magis, the protocol for sustainable wine, presented its “Sustainability Handbook” to know how to obtain the Magis certification of sustainable wines.

There are many actions to promote sustainability in viticulture and Magis wanted to contribute to this process of green innovation by publishing a handbook for vineyard management according to the principles of environmental sustainability.

Magis wants to focus its attention on vineyard and enhance the work of the agronomist, updating the wine world on technological innovations in a network among companies and scientific institutions.

Magis also wants to support agronomists promoting the development of Italian and European laws which will come into force as early as this year. At the end of the process the bottle of wine will be “the certified witness of a path from the land to the glass with special attention to the consumer, that attention of everyone who wants to leave his/her children a better world”, Attilio Scienza, Chairman of Magis technical–scientific Committee, states.


What is, exactly, Magis?

The Magis Protocol of Sustainability is a management system of productive activities that enables the production reducing inputs, using them only where and when needed, without jeopardizing the quality of the final product.

To comply with the Protocol and to be able to pair your wine with the Magis mark, you must adhere to a minimum series of evaluation criteria and other optional criteria.

Those who want to join it, not only are required to comply with minimum criteria, but also to define an annual growth process that provides for the adoption of one or more optional criteria. The verification of the coherence with these criteria is carried out by DNV, an independent certification body, one of the leaders in the world.

Magis has the aim to assist any company that wants to produce sustainable wine declaring it on the label.

The Protocol is structured in two parts:

? On paper: the Magis Sustainability Handbook, for all winegrowers

? On the web: monitoring boards and thematic analysis


What do you need to do Sustainability? Why this Handbook?

“For doing sustainability we must not forget our tradition, we need to treasure experience and use innovation that is concretely applicable in the field to bridge a gap between consumers and research. In effect, today it has become increasingly important to communicate what is implemented in vineyards because behind a bottle of wine, in addition to the vineyard and the territory, there is also the work of many people.

This handbook was created with the aim of transferring all the key concepts of the word “sustainability” in viticulture tracing all transactions that during the year are implemented in vineyards, to obtain good and healthy grape harvests. To achieve these results while respecting consumers, operators and the environment, you need to “interpret” vintages and environmental conditions, and do not proceed by applying always the same “recipe”. (...) The Handbook highlights the centrality of agronomists in the sustainable management of vineyards. They are the sole interpreter of these conditions, the ones who, in the company, take the decisions regarding the choice of cultivations, share with winemakers objectives and times of harvest, bother to keep grapes healthy and to bring them to the correct maturation in a logic of reduction of external inputs.

The “Sustainability Handbook”, prepared by Magis technical–scientific Committee, wants to allow all winegrowers who believe in it and who want to engage in environmental sustainability to achieve the certification of their wines.

Source: Magis Sustainability Handbook