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VITICULTURE IN SICILY

Sicilian winegrowers demonstrate a strong and sensitive attachment to the soil and to their vines. Before the 1990s they had difficulty keeping pace with improvements in enology and the commercialization of wine. Their viticultural practices, however, have evolved alongside techniques practiced for centuries in the traditional wine-producing countries of Europe. Since the end of the nineteenth century, Sicilian viticulture has adapted to the infestation of phylloxera from the early 1880s to 1920, the modernization of the bulk wine industry from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, and the development of a quality sold-by-the-bottle wine industry from the late 1980s to the present day.

Before the twentieth century, Sicilians largely planted their vines mixed with other crops. Beyond established quality wine–producing areas such as existed in France, southern Germany, and other isolated areas, this practice was widespread, particularly in poorer farming communities. It was an effective use of space if the plants were positioned so that each got sufficient light, ventilation, and root space. Where conditions were windy, which is often the case in Sicily, surrounding plants and walls served as windbreaks. Polyculture, the interspersing of different types of plants in a growing area, provided farmers with more security than monoculture. Vines grew alongside vegetable plants, fruit trees, and cereals. If a malady, a pest, or unfavorable climatic conditions affected one plant type, there would still be others that were less or not affected. Polyculture also gave peasant farmers a measure of self-sufficiency and had positive effects on the family diet.

TRADITIONAL VITICULTURE: PRE-1950 ROOTS

During the nineteenth century, as the Marsala and Mascali wine industries developed and Sicilian wine exports increased, true vineyard monocultures began to be planted. In Marsala, for example, only 5 percent of the vineyards were specialized in the late 1800s. Of the new vineyards that were planted there at the end of the 1800s, however, about 35 percent were specialized. Other crops were often planted in strips next to those early specialized vineyards. The expansion of vineyard monocultures was more rapid where vineyards were planted on flat land or rolling hills, such as at Marsala. In other areas, such as Etna, where landholdings were smaller and there are severe slopes and rocky conditions, the changeover was more gradual. Even today, fruit trees commonly dot Etna’s terraced vineyards. Here the construction of terraces supported by rock walls claimed land for vineyard use at the expense of much more labor. By the twentieth century, only where there was sufficient low-cost labor could terraced vineyards be maintained against the destructive forces of gravity, rain, root growth, and animal activity. Creating new vineyards on terraces was simply not profitable.

THE PHYLLOXERA INFESTATION

The phylloxera infestation came to Sicily in the early 1880s, more than a decade after it arrived in France. Phylloxera, officially named Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, is a microscopic louse that attacks vine roots. It causes vines to die after several years of infestation. The insects spread rapidly in the mixed sand-clay-silt soils that cover most of the island. Though phylloxera was reported in all Sicilian provinces within five years of its known introduction, most of the devastation occurred later, at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Because the volcanic soils on Etna, Pantelleria, and the Aeolian Islands are rocky and sandy, they were and remain less hospitable to phylloxera, which prefer moister and richer soils. In these areas there are still vines, usually isolated, that remain on their original roots (as opposed to the phylloxera-resistant American rootstock eventually planted everywhere else). On Etna as many as 15 percent of the vines are on their own roots.

Before phylloxera appeared, planting a vine entailed burying one end of a one-year-old branch, called a cane, into the ground. This occurred in the winter or early spring, during or at the end of vine dormancy. With the first spring heat, dormant buds on the unburied part of the cane turned green and then sprouted, forming green branches called shoots, which bore infant leaves and what would become bunches of flowers. Below the ground, the cane began developing its root system. It took about four years for the vine to give its first substantial harvest. When a vine in an established vineyard died and needed to be replaced, during the winter, farmers buried all but the apex of a cane from an adjacent vine, running it underground to the vacant spot. At the apex, the most light-sensitive part of the cane, buds came to life at the first period of sustained warmth. With growth above the ground, the cane rooted its buried part, though it continued to be linked to the parent vine for several years, if not longer. This prephylloxera system of replacing individual vines, called layering or provignage (propaggine in Italian), is still practiced today on Etna, Pantelleria, and the Aeolian Islands.

After phylloxera’s landfall in France, researchers there, in the United States, and in other countries began to look for a cure. Though they failed to discover how to eradicate phylloxera or cure infected vines, researchers in France and the United States by the early 1870s had devised a strategy that enabled Vitis vinifera, the parent of all European vine cultivars, to grow in phylloxera-infested soils. They grafted Vitis vinifera vinestock onto the roots of adequately resistant indigenous American vine species. Because the American vines had evolved in the presence of phylloxera, they had developed an ability to heal from and withstand the insects’ attacks on their roots. During the late nineteenth century, France, Italy, and other affected countries grafted Vitis vinifera vinewood onto American rootstocks. Researchers found that the grafts between different combinations of Vitis vinifera cultivars and various American vine species each had unique characteristics, which expressed themselves differently according to the climate and soil where the grafted plants grew. Researchers could therefore develop rootstocks that were the product of multiple crossings between American vines and Vitis vinifera to amplify variables such as success of the graft, adaptability to site, vigor, and disease resistance. They selected the most successful rootstocks and sent them to private nurseries for propagation and release to the public. Beyond resistance to phylloxera, Sicily needed rootstocks that adapted well to the particular characteristics of its soils. The topsoils are very dry during the growing season due to a lack of rain. Also, many of its soils are high active lime soils, with a high pH, from pulverized rocks containing calcium carbonate. Many American vine types develop a physiological disorder, chlorosis, in such soils. A third condition is the high levels of salinity in the soils of the southeastern half of the island. At varying concentrations for different vines, salts can be toxic. Sicily therefore needed rootstocks that not only were resistant to phylloxera but also could perform well in dry, calcareous, and salt-rich soils.

In 1888 the Palermo Royal Nursery of American Vines was established, with branches at Marsala, Milazzo, Catania, Caltagirone, Noto, and Piazza Armerina. Its purpose was to devise a Sicilian solution to phylloxera. Federico Paulsen, an agricultural expert from Rome, was put in charge. He was to create one of the two most important Sicilian rootstocks, 1103 Paulsen, a rootstock with good resistance to drought, high active lime, and salinity. In 1894 Antonio Ruggeri from Messina, working in the Ragusa area for a Vittoria- and Siracusa-based nursery research facility, began a series of hybridization experiments that led to Sicily’s most used rootstock, 140 Ruggeri. Affectionately called Ruggeri Veloce (“Speedy Ruggeri”) by growers, this rootstock has particularly high vigor in deep, dry, and very high active lime soils. These two interspecific crossings provided full phylloxera protection, registered high rates of successful grafting onto Sicilian native vinestock, and were well adapted to the island’s growing conditions. During the late nineteenth century, Sicily made great progress in the fight against phylloxera. Private Sicilian vine nurseries facilitated the enormous viticultural changes that had to occur if Sicilian viticulture was to survive. The Cali Fiorini bothers of Catania, Giuseppe Di Grazia of Messina, and Giuseppe Zirilli Lucifero of Milazzo propagated early phylloxera-resistant varieties, such as Rupestris du Lot and Berlandieri X Riparia 420A, and sold rootstocks grafted onto vine varieties to Sicilian growers for planting. In 1908, the government authorized the free distribution of American rootstocks and vine budwood to farmers. In the early 1930s, 1103 Paulsen and 140 Ruggeri were introduced and became widely used in Sicily. Today both rootstocks are used throughout the world. The Sicilian effort to combat and solve the phylloxera problem was an unqualified success.

In 1880, during the high point of the nineteenth-century planting boom in Sicily, the surface area of its vineyards totaled 321,718 hectares (794,982 acres). This area was reduced to 176,000 hectares (434,905 acres) in 1905 and dropped even further, to a low point of 169,200 hectares (418,102 acres) in 1920. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, many phylloxera-stricken vineyards were not replanted. The least likely to survive were those at higher elevations, on steeper slopes, and on poorer soils. These sites were lower yielding but, on average, produced better-quality wine grapes. The market for Sicilian wine, however, did not support the costs of farming them.

After 1920, with phylloxera solved, World War I over, and the Italian economy improving (until 1925), vineyard acreage rebounded. However, more-fertile and flatter areas were planted with higher-yielding, more-disease-resistant, and easier-to-grow varieties, which also substituted in those vineyards that were replanted. Vine variety diversity in vineyards decreased. The Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War stymied the development of more vineyard planting. During the first half of the twentieth century the only area in Sicily that showed a substantial rebound in vineyard planting was the plains in the province of Trapani. These vineyards supplied the Marsala industry. After World War II the plains and low-incline sites of Agrigento were widely planted, also to supply the Marsala industry. As tractors and other vineyard machinery became available in the 1950s, the amount of labor required to farm a given area of land decreased. Many workers left Sicily’s vineyards and farms for employment in the industrial north of Italy. Viticultural areas, particularly difficult-to-farm ones such as the Aeolian Islands, were abandoned. Most of the farmers and other inhabitants emigrated to Australia. Agriculture was perceived as an activity solely for those on the lowest rung of society, who were unable to escape Sicily.

ALBERELLO

Until the 1950s, though vines had been grafted onto rootstocks and new plantings were increasingly specialized, viticulture was essentially conducted in the same way as at the turn of the century. The vine-training system used almost exclusively in Sicily was alberello. Combined with Sicily’s warm, sunny, and dry climate, it was ideally suited for the production of the concentrated, high-alcohol wines used as the base for Marsala and the vino da taglio that Etna and southeastern Sicily became associated with before 1970. This system enables vines to produce high-extract and high-sugar grapes, although at the high costs of hand labor and low yields. Greek settlers arriving in the eighth century B.C. had most likely brought it to the island.

Alberello means “little tree” in Italian. The vines take the shape of dwarf trees. Each trunk is about twenty to twenty-five centimeters (eight to ten inches) high and is often dug into a small pit. At its head, the trunk divides into three or four branches that rise into the air like arms to a height of about sixty-one centimeters (two feet). Each branch carries one spur, a short cane the size of a small finger. Each spur has two or three buds. At the beginning of each season, the green parts of the plant erupt from the buds. The trunk and the branches are kept from year to year as the support for vegetation and fruit, unless there is a need to replace the branches because of disease or physical damage. Alberello is called a head-trained system because it uses the top of a vertical trunk as the starting point for annual pruning. Before the start of growth in the spring, while the vine is still dormant the farmer removes the wood that grew during the previous season, returning the vine to its seasonal starting configuration, with the exception of new bud-bearing spurs and, in some systems, one or more new bud-bearing canes. The farmer selects the healthiest spurs closest to the trunk. In the alberello system, each vine is small and carries a small crop load. Because the spurs—and hence the buds—are approximately equidistant from the roots, they receive nutrients and other plant substances more or less simultaneously. Bunches also tend to ripen simultaneously, which helps farmers bring in a uniformly ripened harvest. Provided that vines are short enough or are planted far enough apart, they are open to light from all directions of the sky.

Because the vegetation is low, the vine benefits from a layer of warm air that builds over the surface of the ground throughout the day. The darker the soil, the more radiant heat it absorbs and the warmer this layer becomes. This added warmth means the grapes ripen faster than they would in other training systems. The warm conditions also increase the evaporation of water through the ripened grapes’ skin, elevating the sugar level of the grape berries to such high degrees that 18 percent alcohol wines are possible.

The low-lying canopy of leaves also preserves the humidity that rises from the ground, making alberello ideal for dry growing conditions. Sicily has little rain during the growing season and low atmospheric humidity. The canopy moisture is good for the plant, provided the weather is dry and windy enough to limit the development of fungus growth. However, insects find the canopy a protected place where they can avoid detection. Fruit and insects sheltered by leaves are difficult to reach with chemical sprays.

Vine density varied depending on locality. In areas such as Marsala, where vineyards were on flat ground, densities were about thirty-five hundred vines per hectare (1,416 per acre). Mountainous areas where the soil was fertile, such as on Etna, averaged ten thousand vines per hectare (4,047 per acre). At this density, only a man or a small draft animal such as a mule can negotiate the short distance—one meter (about three feet)—between vines. The greater the density, the shorter the vines need to be so that they do not shade one another. Short vines are also more resistant to wind damage. Sicilian growers may avoid wind damage by sheltering their alberello vines in shallow pits or on the leeward side of stone walls or other windbreaks. Tying the canes and shoots growing from the permanent branches to support poles or other branches also helps limit wind damage.

Save for the allowance of small engine-driven cultivators (motozappa), alberello is not adaptable to mechanization. Its pruning, training, and harvesting involve back-breaking labor. Other training systems introduced into Sicily mostly during the 1960s involve far fewer human-hours. During the 1970s there was a dramatic decrease in alberello vineyards. By 1984, only 54 percent of the vines in Sicily were trained in alberello. By 2010, this had dropped to about 8.5 percent. Moreover, mechanical methods of concentrating musts, the early 1990s development of synthetic sources of tartaric acid, and increasingly effective policing of illegal wine shipments have diminished the vino da taglio market in favor of lower-alcohol, fresher wines that are better achieved with higher-trained, row-vine systems. Nonetheless, Salvo Foti, an enologist working in the Etna area, is dedicated to preserving alberello viticulture in Sicily. He has created an association of winegrowers, I Vigneri, dedicated to using this system.

Various permutations of alberello exist in different places on Sicily, due in part to climatic differences. For example, the system unique to the island of Pantelleria is alberello basso strisciante. Basso means “low,” referring to the height, about ten centimeters (four inches), of the branches. Strisciante means “crawling” and describes how the branches, about four to six of them with one or two buds per spur, move out horizontally from the head to a distance of about one meter (three feet). Vines are planted about two meters (seven feet) apart. They look like spiders crawling across a stonescape. Each vine grows in a pit dug twenty to thirty centimeters (eight to twelve inches) into the volcanic soil. This shelters the shoots, leaves, and fruit from high winds and is similar to systems used on the Greek island of Santorini and the Spanish island of Lanzarote. The pit also collects rain and dew, making this moisture accessible to the roots. The lower planting densities on Pantelleria—2,500 plants per hectare (1,012 per acre)—mean each vine can collect more moisture. In alberello marsalese, practiced in the vicinity of Marsala, a short cane carrying three or four buds is tied to a spur on another branch, forming an arc. This cane is replaced each year. The other branches carry two-budded spurs. During the summer, shoots grow out from the buds and droop, causing the leaves and fruit to splay on the ground. Some farmers support the vine, its vegetation, and its fruit with a stake. Mazara del Vallo has a similar version, called alberello mazarese. The cane from one branch is strung under other branches. Marsala and Mazara del Vallo are two of the driest and windiest areas of Sicily, which makes it possible to allow the vegetation and fruit to lie on the ground without being damaged by fungus attack. In the vicinity of Alcamo, there is another version of alberello. A pole helps support the trunk and one cane that emerges from the trunk. A spur on the trunk carries two buds, and the cane carries six to eight. During the growing season, the pole supports the green shoots, the vegetation, and the fruit and protects them from wind damage.

MODERNIZATION: LATE 1950S TO MID-1980S

GUYOT AND CORDONE SPERONATO

Like alberello, Guyot, named after a French scientist who promoted its use in the 1860s, is a head-trained system. Guyot pruning found its way to Sicily during the late nineteenth century via the French technicians working at estates such as Zucco, Duca di Salaparuta, and Castello Maniace. Unlike alberello, it relies on long canes instead of short spurs to carry buds. Also, wires and stakes form parallel rows and support the vines and their vegetation and fruit. Guyot vines can be mechanically harvested but not mechanically pruned, which requires experience and skill.

By the 1950s, mechanization was introduced to Sicilian viticulture. The distance between the parallel rows of vines in Guyot training accommodated tractors, harvesters, and other farming machinery. As alberello vineyards decreased, average vine density decreased, to about twenty-seven hundred vines per hectare (1,093 per acre). At the same time, the increasing loss of trained vineyard workers to northern Italy encouraged the introduction of cordon-spur (cordone speronato) training. This row-training system requires less pruning skill than Guyot and can also accommodate mechanical pruning. Both systems create a thin vertical canopy along the row. The increased elevation of the bunches and vegetation above the ground reduces the concentration of sugar and increases the total acidity in the grapes, resulting in less-rich and sourer wines.

TENDONE

During the 1970s the tendone system of vine training became widespread, particularly in western Sicily. Tendone is the training of vines on an extended, over-the-head pergola. Provided that vines in tendone are planted in fertile soil, they can support the production of higher yields per area than are common for lower systems of training. The resulting wines tend to have low alcohol. While the system can produce lively, fresh white wines in hot, sunny climates, it does not usually produce quality full-bodied red wines. Tendone was introduced when the demand from both the vino da taglio and the Marsala industry for concentrated high-alcohol bulk wine had diminished and export markets wanted fruitier, fresher bulk wine. The Marsala industry found it less expensive to add concentrated rectified must to tendone’s low-potential-alcohol musts. During the 1980s the high volume of production per hectare made possible by tendone was ideal for the wine-for-distillation industry financed by European Union subsidies. Nowadays this system is rarely used for wine grapes.

GRAFTING

After phylloxera invaded Sicily, winegrowers needed to employ grafters or learn how to graft. Before phylloxera, they selected and propagated the vines that they preferred in their vineyards. The process of selecting vinestock on site is called mass selection. After phylloxera, they needed to graft their selections onto rootstocks, provided by nurseries, containing American vine species genes. Between the onset of phylloxera and the 1980s, on-site grafting, called dry grafting, was common. Teams of grafters roamed Sicilian vineyards. In some areas, such as Etna, where there was a strong winegrower tradition, vineyard workers did their own dry grafting. This entails grafting vinestock onto rootstock that has already been planted in the vineyard for that purpose. Since the 1980s, nurseries have increasingly taken over the job of grafting, which they do with grafting machines. This is called bench grafting. The most prestigious nurseries are not in Sicily. Nowadays when Sicilian producers want to plant a vineyard, they usually place an order of several vinestock-to-rootstock grafts with a nursery. The nursery does the grafting and sends the bench grafts to the winegrower, who plants them. Winegrowers may, however, instead send vinewood from their own vineyards to the nurseries for bench grafting. This is the way that they most often practice mass selection. More commonly, growers, with the help of a nursery or a consultant, select both a clonal selection of their chosen variety and a rootstock that will be grafted to it. The nursery makes the graft and sends the grafted vinestock back for planting.

IMPACTS OF INDUSTRIAL VITICULTURE

Though irrigation was initially introduced to Sicily during the Muslim occupation, Sicilian vineyards did not employ systematic mechanized irrigation until the 1960s. It was adopted more rapidly in western than eastern Sicily. Irrigation is particularly helpful in sustaining young vines during drought. It also helps maximize and stabilize grape production. Appellation laws in the European Union regulate irrigation because its use can lead to overproduction. Also during the 1960s, petrochemical companies developed and vigorously sold synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. These products, along with the planting of varieties such as Trebbiano Toscano and the use of training systems such as tendone, allowed farmers to sustain vineyards at higher yield levels, as much as thirty to forty metric tons per hectare (26,765 pounds per acre). By comparison, today’s average is eight metric tons per hectare (7,137 pounds per acre). Tractors and other machinery increased vineyard soil compaction, reducing drainage and removing air from the topsoil. This shortened the life of vines and made them increasingly dependent on irrigation and fertilization, depleted soil resources, and destroyed organisms above- and underground. The destruction of the Sicilian vineyard ecosystem is only now being reversed, by farmers and wine producers employing sustainable, organic, and biodynamic viticulture.

VITICULTURE FROM THE LATE 1980S

By the end of the 1980s, Sicilian wine producers realized that their bulk wine industry had no future, faced with declining per capita consumption at home and elsewhere in southern Europe and more efficient, and hence lower-cost, bulk wine production in New World countries. Forward-looking Sicilians realized that they had to enter the world of quality wine, in which wine was sold by the bottle. Viticultural technology had to be revamped to achieve more-concentrated wines than had been produced in the 1970s and 1980s and fresher and better-balanced wines than had been produced in the 1950s and early 1960s. Vineyards in tendone were transformed to use Guyot and cordone speronato. Guyot has been the most popular. Vine density in new vineyards has been between four and six thousand per hectare (1,619 and 2,428 per acre). By inserting new rows between existing ones, winegrowers have been able to increase the vine density of vineyards formerly planted in tendone. This change has been driven by the belief (not scientific fact) that to produce higher-quality wine grapes, more vines should each carry less fruit in a given area. By the time these changes were made, tractors were narrower, and some could even straddle rows. Though mechanical harvesting is used more and more, most vineyards are still harvested by hand.

During the 1990s, vineyard technologies arrived in Sicily for the most part from points north, where climates were cooler and wetter. Initially enological consultants from the north advised Sicilian vineyard owners to practice techniques such as defoliation—to increase airflow around and through bunches—and to get direct sunlight on grape skins to speed up their phenolic maturation (the development of compounds such as tannins). It took a succession of dry, hot vintages, running up to the hottest and driest in recent memory, 2003, to show Sicilian vineyard owners and the rest of Italy, which suffered the same heat and drought, the risks of these practices. Sunburned grape skins endow wine with a raisin flavor that destroys the varietal character of the grape, obscures vineyard character, and homogenizes wine style. In an effort to protect their grapes from the sun, many Sicilian producers now irrigate in May and June to increase vegetation and then turn off the tap except for periods in July, August, and September with a dangerous combination of sunlight and high temperatures. About three weeks before harvest some producers strip off the leaves around the fruit on the side of the row not exposed to the sun. This provides more ventilation to the bunches without increasing their sun exposure. Only when vines are having difficulty ripening their red grapes do winegrowers remove leaves to expose the bunches to direct sunlight.

One practice that could be used more often, particularly in white wine production, is night harvesting. When grapes are night-harvested, they come in at cooler temperatures. This preserves precursor aroma compounds in the skins, which results in more-aromatic wines. Moreover, acidity levels in grapes build up at night and decrease throughout the day. Although night harvesting decreases the high energy costs of refrigeration, this hardly offsets the added costs of paying workers overtime wages. The expense of equipment and setting up a vineyard for night harvesting are also high. Nevertheless, Donnafugata has night-harvested some of its Chardonnay vineyards since 1998. Feudo Arancio also harvests at night.

VINE DISEASES AND DISORDERS

Because Sicily is dry and winds there are common, fungus disease is usually kept at bay. Powdery mildew, called oidium in Europe, unlike most other fungus diseases, does not need moist, windless conditions for propagation. It depends on wind. Sicily is a windy island. Powdery mildew is a common and serious problem in Sicilian vineyards, but it can be held at bay by periodic applications, about four per year, of a mixture of sulfur, lime, and water.

Downy mildew, called peronospera, is a highly virulent fungus that proliferates rapidly in warm and humid conditions. It rarely affects Sicilian vineyards. But once every twenty years or so, it becomes a severe problem. For this reason, Sicilian winegrowers are not well prepared to deal with it. Two infamous attacks occurred in 1957 and 1972. More recently, in 2007 and 2011, attacks significantly reduced yields. Winds and high day-to-night temperature changes protect locations that are frequently humid and warm, such as the north and east faces of Etna, from downy mildew. Sicilian growers used to protect their vines with regular applications of a small amount of copper added to a sulfur spray. This gives extremely limited protection. Sulfur and copper applications are allowed even in sustainable, biologic, and biodynamic viticulture. When, in the early 1990s, synthetic fungicides that quickly destroyed downy mildew became available, Sicilians stopped the prophylactic spraying of copper-sulfur solutions.

Some vines in areas of Sicily with high active lime soils suffer from chlorosis, a disorder, caused by an iron deficiency, that slows the production of chlorophyll. The best protection is to put vines on lime-tolerant rootstocks such as 140 Ruggeri. Applications of ferrous sulfate also fend off the disorder.

THE IMPACTS OF YOUNG VINES

Sicilian vines are young. The average age of vines in a vineyard, save for some rare ones on Etna, is rarely more than fifty years old. The average age of vines in Sicily’s well-established vineyards is fifteen years old. Vines reach their production prime at eight years old. After that time, their yields decline, at first slowly, then more rapidly. With increased vine age, however, the grapes, all other things being equal, make better and better wines. Older vines with deep roots can tap into Sicily’s abundant underground water resources. They do not need irrigation. Deep in the subsoil, their rootlets can drink in what is the essence of terroir, mineral salts dissolved in water. In my experience, the tactile structure of wine gets finer with greater vine age. With increasing vine age and more-attentive cultivation practices, the raw materials for Sicilian wines should become better and better.

ECO-FRIENDLY VITICULTURAL PROTOCOLS

Since 2000 there has been increasing interest in protocols that minimize the destructive impacts of modern grape cultivation on the environment. Modern viticulture is necessarily monocultural because only monocultures have, at least until now, delivered high-quality, regular yields, at lower costs than those of polycultural systems. But monoculture relies on human intervention. Restoring biological diversity and some of nature’s adaptive ability involves instituting protocols that can be expensive and time consuming. Inevitably they involve ethically driven small steps. The planning and implementation of all these protocols involve a great deal of attention to detail. This greater attention alone results in better crops and better wine. Sicilian wine producers, particularly in dry and windy areas like Marsala and Menfi, champion the idea that their growing environments make their viticulture naturally more eco-friendly. Adhering faithfully to rigorous organic and biodynamic protocols, however, entails taking risks that could compromise the quality of the crop or reduce its volume in certain years.

ORGANIC VITICULTURE

Beginning in the mid-1990s the organic (biologica) viticulture movement began to attract the attention of Sicilian wine producers. In part, this interest was a response to the demands of the German and Austrian markets, which asked for organic products. EU regulations precisely define what chemical cultivation additions, such as herbicides, fertilizers, and pest and disease antidotes, can be applied in organic viticulture. Clever solutions have been created to compensate for restrictions on antidotes that are disallowed. For example, Santa Tresa in Vittoria and Marabino in Noto use pheromones (in this case female insect hormones) instead of pesticides to stifle the reproduction of harvest moths (tignola), their most serious insect problem. Certified organic estates can print “Vino ottenuto (o prodotto) da uve da agricoltura biologica” (“Wine obtained [or produced] from grapes from organic agriculture”) on their labels. There are as yet no regulations that pertain to organic vinification. Bosco Falconeria, a small estate in Partinico, is one of Sicily’s pioneers, beginning its efforts to go organic in 1985 and becoming certified in 1989. Another early adopter is Salvatore Ferrandes on the island of Pantelleria. Tenuta del Nanfro in Caltagirone started using organic viticulture in 1998. COS has officially been organic since 2004.

SUSTAINABLE VITICULTURE

By 2005, sustainable had become a buzzword in the Sicilian wine industry. New World wine industries and academic institutions launched the concept of sustainability in viticulture in the early 1990s. This basically means minimizing the negative impact of modern grape cultivation on the environment. During the 1990s, sustainable viticultural protocols—such as Low Input Sustainable Agriculture (LISA) in North America and Australia, Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ), and France’s lutte raisonnée (“reasoned struggle”)—came into existence. In their infancy, they focused on how to minimize chemical additions in vineyards. Meteorological data obtained in the vineyard or by local research stations are analyzed against the degree of microbial and insect pressure to determine minimal doses of chemical additions. The precise targeting and timing of the additions maximize their efficacy. Precise targeting involves pairing vineyard management protocols with technologies of application. For example, treatments of grape bunches should be applied in a precise zone unobstructed by leaves. Planting nitrogen-fixing cover crops between rows diminishes the need for synthetic fertilizers.

Quality Sicilian wine producers are increasingly focused on the impact of all their activities on the environment as a whole. The EU has subsidized solar panel installations and other sustainable projects at several Sicilian wine estates. Donnafugata and Feudo Arancio have been leaders in the use of sustainable practices and the promotion of the concept of sustainability. At the 2010 Vinitaly, Tasca d’Almerita announced its partnership with Milan’s Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in a sustainable program called SOStain. Planeta has more recently become a partner in SOStain. Large wine companies preferentially adopt sustainable viticulture and, more generally, sustainable business activities over organic or biodynamic protocols.

BIODYNAMIC VITICULTURE

Biodynamic viticulture is the application of the principles of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner to grape cultivation. At a 1924 conference, he presented his ideas to agronomists who subsequently translated them into a system of agricultural practices. The macrocosm, the microcosm, and their elemental forces figure into the rationale for biodynamic viticultural activities, as for all other such activities. Examples of biodynamic practices are spraying dilute nettle tea on vines and timing certain activities to coincide with cosmologic events, such as pruning or planting during a descending moon. Organic and sustainable practices are used as long as they accord with the philosophy. There are several organizations that certify biodynamic agriculture. In the mid-1990s the Pachino producer Hans Zenner and his son, Dó, became the first practicing biodynamic winegrowers in Sicily. Interest in and adoption of biodynamic viticulture had begun to grow in Sicily by 2005. Other early adopters were Abbazia Santa Anastasia and COS.

THE FUTURE IMPORTANCE OF ECO-FRIENDLY PROTOCOLS

The above protocols are all holistic and extend, to varying degrees, beyond viticulture into some, if not all, aspects of wine production, distribution, and marketing. They also extend in varying degrees to issues such as global warming, air pollution, water pollution and availability, and the limits of carbon-based energy sources, such as oil. The United Nations has issued a strategic policy called Global Impact that sets sustainable standards for businesses. The goal is to establish networks of compliant businesses and organizations that not only support the policy but preferentially conduct business with one another. The alcoholic beverage–purchasing monopolies of the governments of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands have signed an agreement that, starting in 2013, will give preferential trading status to the industries of other countries in compliance with Global Impact. Northern European countries are important export markets for Sicilian wine producers. Because of the increasing political concern over sustainability, the Sicilian wine industry is likely to benefit from adopting sustainable and other eco-friendly protocols.