Winegrowers and Vintners of Europe

Manifesto of the Vintners of Europe 2009

“The winegrower personally takes care of the vineyard, the cellar, and the sales. The wine of the winegrower is alive, brings pleasure, and is the child of its territory and of its thought. An authentic expression of a culture. The winegrower considers the consumer a co-producer. The winegrower preserves and shapes the landscape with respect for biodiversity and the culture of their territory, which they narrate and enrich.

As a farmer, the winegrower assumes the responsibility of preserving and improving soil fertility and the balance of ecosystems. The winegrower commits to renounce the use of artificial and synthetic molecules and organisms to protect the living. The winegrower governs limits in all their commitments, seeking the optimum, never the maximum. The winegrower assumes responsibility for their activity in respect of the environment, the health of the consumer, and the destiny of their community and the land.

The winegrower commits to creating and nurturing relationships with other winegrowers, farmers, food producers, chefs, universities and research institutes, educators, and citizens in their community and around the world. The winegrower practices transparency: they say what they do and do what they say.

The Vintners of Europe gathered in Florence ask national and European authorities not to obstruct their work with regulations suited for industry but not for their particular practices.'

This manifesto was presented in Florence on December 7, 2009, and was developed by all those who participated in the international days in Montecatini: farmers and winegrowers, oenologists, agronomists, associations of organic, biodynamic, and sustainable agriculture, representatives of Slow Food, and others.

Most of the producers and technicians present were strong advocates of the choice to cultivate using organic and biodynamic methods, alongside a portion of producers still enchanted by conventional viticulture and oenology (those unable to do without synthetic chemicals).

The challenge of reconciling all the souls of this heterogeneous and extraordinary movement, just starting, led to the drafting of a document (certainly not conclusive) with many intentions and some fundamental choices. We tried to distinguish between the strength of numbers, necessary for any movement that aims to have an impact, even politically, and the refusal to compromise on essential and probably existential issues.

In our opinion, the distance from synthetic chemistry should have been further emphasized; a clear line of development should have been identified, starting from being organic farmers and then naturally advancing to a secular, free biodynamics capable of making the agricultural person the protagonist of their actions.

The enormous availability of experiences and knowledge of the farmers and technicians producing today in this way can certainly guide those transitioning from chemical viticulture and oenology toward biodynamic or at least organic emancipation.

We will continue to support the movement, in its practical applications, with our concrete and scientific example, with our farms, so that the path already undertaken by winegrowers toward the agriculture of the future is more clearly illuminated and explicit.”