Should the 327 small denominations disappear?
76 denominations bottle 92% of the DOC-DOCG wines and there are those who ask for more effort in promoting these and on larger markets
Carlo-Flamini
read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
Carlo Flamini, director of the “Il Corriere vinicolo” newspaper by the Unione Italiana Vini, which is the largest confederation of the wine industrialists, proposes an article entitles “Tempo di scegliere” (Time to choose) where a harsh attack is made to the small denominations. The starting point is the report made by Valoritalia, the most important wine certification organ in Italy, regarding the 2012-13 activities. Transferred on a national scale the Valoritalia figures show a concentration of 92% of the Dop bottles in 76 denominations and the remaining 327 are only referable to 8% of what is bottled with an average of 3.000 hl equal to 40.000 bottles each. These numbers help the director of “Corriere
Riccardo-Ricci-Curbastro
vinicolo” to make a consideration regarding the 10 major denominations-varieties <<that they have broken into the markets, consenting the sustainability of the whole sector. It is time to recognize in a laic manner the situation and to put the wineries who produce them in the condition of having effective and well aimed promotion instruments>> In other words one asks for more concentrated OCM resources using a new criteria which privileges the regions, the denominations and the stronger varieties: Prosecco,the two Chianti‘s, Montepulciano, Asti, Moscato, Soave, Valpolicella and Toscana IGT, Sicilia, Terre di Sicilia, wines made with Negroamaro and Primitivo.
To this proposal comes a reply from the President of Federdoc Riccardo Ricci Curbastro , who points out that to revoke a DOC would result only in a riots but he does propose the
chinese wine
joining of more denominations adjacent within a larger DOC area than those that would become the subzones.
As many of you know I am the President of the Consorzio del vino Orcia, the certification organ of our wines is called Toscana Certificazione. Many small denominations have chosen, like us, a less expensive controller than Valoritalia, for this reason it is wrong to use the figures from this organism as if it are the sole certificatory. The reasoning proposed in the article in “Corriere vinicolo” does not seem to me methodologically correct.
My second thought is about the meaning of the small denominations as strongholds against decline of the land and the abandoning of the rural territories. The carry out an irreplaceable job in the countrysides.
I share the opinion that investing in the internationalization of denominations producing
chianti vineyard
less than half a million bottles, it seems quite antiquated, although a means of sustaining these wines must be found if we do not want them to die. So other methods must be found other than the collective denomination mentioned by Ricci Curbastro, which actually sounds like a definitive sentence towards anonymity for wines that have distinctive characters and commercial potential. I do save from his proposal though the idea of joining together the small denominations from the same region for shared projects in promotion and internationalization as is already being done by the Regione Toscana. In this way the local identity remains an element of strength but inside a project for saving costs.