News

17 March 2023

Giornate Vitenova 2023: viticulture today

The Giornate Vitenova 2023, held on 7-8 March in Tuscany at Castello di Albola, Biondi Santi-Il Greppo and Tenuta di Argiano, came to an end.

There was wide participation in the event by the wineries that collaborate with Vitenova to realise the idea of a conscious, innovative and holistic viticulture, where the strategies adopted in the vineyard are thought of as an investment of the present in the future and aimed at respecting nature.
Wineries from Italy and abroad participated (Tuscany, Veneto, Piedmont, Umbria, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sicily, Slovenia and Croatia).

giornate vitenova 2023

The themes of the 2023 conference

The conference was opened by Stefano Zaninotti, who presented the new Vitenova database, followed by Stefano Amadeo, who spoke about the new Diversity Ark certification.

Vitenova’s new database will include more than 38,000 analysis data collected over the years, making it possible to compare both individual data and winery data with those in the database broken down by variety, year, territory, type of analysis, type of vineyard, type of management and many other indices. It will make it possible to know trends, averages, reference values over the years for the individual holding, comparing them with the territory or other areas, with varieties, etc. Finally it will be possible to evaluate analyses with respect to climatic trends (rainfall, temperature) and the type of agronomic management.

The certification ‘Diversity Ark. Producing together with nature’ is a new Certification Mark that is intended to be streamlined and free of bureaucratic complications. It allows an in-depth assessment of the viability and potential of the agro-ecosystem of farms in order to improve their management aimed at naturalness and excellence of production.
It stems from the desire to transfer knowledge and increase farmers’ and consumers’ awareness of tangible agro-ecological aspects that reflect on the health of the environment, the soil and the people who work in it.

vitenova 2023 albola

The grapevine and the water deficit in the example of the 2022 season

To explain the behaviour of the plant Sivilotti used an increasingly central and topical concept: ‘resilience’. Resilience is defined as the ability to resist and react in the face of difficulties and adversity, in this case of the grapevine plant. However, the concept is applicable to different areas, in a broader sense to the challenges of global agriculture vis-à-vis climate change, the reaction of farming communities to food challenges, sociology and ecology, psychology and to economics. Nowdays a trendy concept that is well suited at this historical moment to different aspects of human and terrestrial life.

giornate vitenova conference

The resilience of the vine in 2022 has been observed with very fast physiological adaptations at the beginning of the season. A plant that is water-stressed at the beginning of the season develops the ability to react and self-regulate more effectively to manage its subsequent course. This has been observed in a lesser development of the foliage, which has led to a higher transpiration capacity, smaller vessels and osmotic adjustments that have enabled the plant to resist water.
The vine that reacts late to water stress, on the other hand, is at a disadvantage compared to the plant that learned early on how to handle a critical situation such as lack of water and high temperatures.

giornate vitenova 2023 viticoltura

Sivilotti analysed how this affected canopy development, how young leaves and xylem vessels react to this kind of stress. With the low availability of water, stomatal closure is observed, an action performed by the plant in order to conserve its scarce stocks. Along with lower photosynthesis, nitrogen uptake and leaf area, increased root growth was observed.

As far as grape quality and polyphenolic ripeness are concerned, moderate water stress improves grape quality by partly reducing production. Excessive stress, on the other hand, worsens grape quality and has negative effects on plant physiology. It is therefore important to optimise water use through deficit irrigation strategies.

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Conclusions

The adherence to the timetable together with the invaluable collaboration and hospitality services of the three host wineries were fundamental to the success of the event.

A heartfelt thank you to those who accepted the invitation, to those who came and to those who would have liked to have been there but could not, and to the people with whom Vitenova collaborates for a viticulture based on respect for nature and a passion for vines and wine.

14 February 2022

Vintage 2021 in Italy

Meteorological trends and observations from the wine-production areas in which Vitenova Vine Wellness operates

The 2021 season was characterized by opposite meteorological events: spring frosts, hail and a particularly dry summer, especially in central and southern Italy. Something that is happening more and more frequently. Italian total rainfall for summer 2021 was 32% below average, the sixth driest on record since 1800. 2021 in Italy was the tenth warmest year since 1800 (anomaly of +0.71° C compared to the 1981-2010 average), not to mention that 9 of the last 10 years are among the hottest ever recorded (at the top in 2018, with +1.17°C). The changeable weather of the last vintage has negatively affected the productivity of the vineyards; overall national production will be down 9% from 2020, according to forecasts from the associations of Italian oenologists and the government institute for agriculture, Ismea.

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13 January 2021

Artificial Neural Network (ANN) modelling for the estimation of soil microbial biomass in vineyards soils

We are glad to announce that we have contributed together with Elisa Pellegrini, Nicola Rovere, Irene Franco, Maria de Nobili and Marco Contin to this new study, published in the journal “Biology and Fertility of Soil” (2020)

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12 January 2021

Natural biodiversity in the vineyard

What does natural biodiversity in the vineyards mean? The greater the biodiversity, which favours the presence of native species (limiting instead that of sown, cosmopolitan and alien species), the better it determines an increase in the ability of the “vineyard” ecosystem to react to changes following any event that modifies its balance.

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