The Valpolicella Negrar Winery is “Amica dell’Ambiente” (Environmentally Friendly): the Eco–Friendly Prize was awarded to it by the Touring Club ViniBuoni d’Italia guide and Verallia.
Among the five award–winning wineries, the Valpolicella Negrar Winery is the only one from the Veneto region to receive the Eco–Friendly Prize for a project of sustainability in the vineyard.
The delivery is scheduled for Saturday, 9th November 2013, within the Merano Wine Festival ( 9–11/11/13 ).
Valpolicella Negar Winery: why green practices?
“In the future, more and more consumers will choose a wine not only for its price, variety and origin, but also for the respect for the environment put into practice by the producers in vineyards and cellars, and the Eco-friendly Prize encourages us to continue in our action, careful about the values of eco–sustainability”, Daniele Accordini, director and winemaker of the Valpolicella Negrar Winery, says.
The cooperative of Negrar, 230 members and 600 hectares of vineyard, was chosen for a project of sustainability in the vineyard.
What are the eco–friendly practices of the Valpolicella Negrar Winery?
“All the 230 members adopt in their vineyards the integrated pest management, according to which the treatments are very scarce and made with products with a low environmental impact”, Claudio Oliboni, countryside technical of the cooperative winery, explains. Moreover, in a third of the 600 hectares of vineyards the “Sexual Confusion” method is put into practice, as illustrated by the technician. “Since several years we have adopted the “Sexual Confusion” as a natural method to control insect pests, mainly represented by Lobesia Botrana, and in 2013 this practice, which consists of applying special diffusers of sex pheromones on the vines that hinder the meeting between male and female insects and thus their proliferation, has involved 200 hectares of Valpolicella, to say, about one–third of the overall surface of the vineyards of our members”.
Environmental sustainability is a priority also in cellars, where there is a system of water recycling, using energy–efficient light bulbs, FSC–certified paper for packaging, glues or paints that are not chemical but coming from forests where strict environmental, social and economic standards are respected.
Sustainability. And the costs?
“The costs of application of natural methods in vineyards are slightly higher than those incurred for the conventional defense – winemaker Accordini concludes – but the benefits in terms of respect and protection of the environment and on workers’, citizens’ and consumers’ health are priceless”.
We have recently submitted a survey to Internet users to understand the actual availability of consumers to pay a higher price for wines produced in an environmentally friendly manner.
Here is the result of the survey of Winesandwine: “When would you pay more for a sustainable wine?”
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05/11/2013
