Attilio Scienza: Resistant vines now need recognition to aspire to obtain a DOC – Virtù Quotidiane

Merano – How and why vines generate resistance, what they represent today and, above all, what they can represent for the future of winemaking, and what their limits are. Taste five wines produced by the winemaker Nicola BiasiWho made it the reason for his life through the wise interventions of the professor Attilio Scienceprofessor of genetic improvement of vines at the University of Milan, in a masterclass at the Merano Wine Festival he gave Chiara Gianotti to VinoTVembark on a journey to discover these varieties whose virtues have strongly reappeared in the news, in the complex context of climate change, and especially this year, due to the powdery mildew that has destroyed production in most areas of the Adriatic mountain range.

“They were born from a now ancient need to counter the arrival of American diseases that had practically destroyed European viticulture,” recalls Scienza. “With copper and sulfur often in short supply to combat it, efforts were made, especially in France, to create resistance using genetic factors, and hybridization of American and European species. The first hybrids were of very modest quality but the market was not as developed as today. As research progressed so did Thanks to the role of the consumer, more and more crossbreeding occurred, arriving after 6, 7 or 8 generations in the presence of individuals with 95% European blood and 5% American blood.

And here comes the first issue, around which the debate develops: “European legislation recognizes the spread of European blood, but Italian legislation does not,” explained Professor Senza, “so the vintners cannot use themselves to produce cult wines.”

“There is a clause in the Vineyard Law that prevents the use of non-vineyard vines to make DOC wines. There is a need for a change that only the government and Parliament can make,” he pointed out, noting that “in order to give legitimacy to these vineyards.” , they remain marginal wines, IGT wines or table wines, and are grown in particularly unsuitable areas and this causes them a certain difficulty on the market. Consumers value them for their health and sustainability, but until we have vines obtained with innovative genetic technology, crossing resistant vines will always remain a controversial and contentious topic.

Experimental wine tasting from 2023; The new style of the emblematic Renitens, a great white wine born from blending the wines of the six Italian founding companies of Resistant, the Biasi business network and Baby Renitens; Vin de la Neu 2019, a Johanniter Vignity Daily Dolomiti Egg; The north side of Brunello di Montalcino 2019.

“We started with six companies two years ago, last year they became 8, and in 2024 they will become 11. “We go into one in Marche, then we go down, and in one in Piedmont, then we expand,” recalls Nicola Biasi, top winemaker. A young man in Italy Fenway The Cult Oenologist 2021 of the Merano Wine Festival, the youngest ever to receive this recognition, has created a network of companies starting with six farms in six different regions between Friuli, Veneto and Trentino, united by viticulture also known as Piwi (from the German pilzwiderstandfähige , i.e. resistant to fungi – fungal diseases).

Speaking of the environment, even hats are now in demand to meet the sustainability challenge: Antonino La Placa The Belgian company Vinventions, which produces lids from recycled plastic extracted from the oceans, introduced Nomacorc Ocean. It is a project that represents a double contribution to the environmental issue, recycling on the one hand and saving the use of cork on the other hand, which comes – mentioned – ten years after proposing the possibility of using cork as an alternative to cork in DOCG systems. (fenced.)