In 2011 the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea started a pilot project involving one of the most important and traditional sectors of our country: Wine Production. Viticulture plays a major role not only in economic terms but also in the protection of agriculture lands. With this in mind, the VIVA Sustainable Wine project was designed to evaluate the environmental impact of the entire wine production process and, at the same time, to offer solutions to reduce it.
A number of big Italian wine producers accepted to participate in the project and underwent an Ecological Footprint analysis according to 4main indicators: air, water, vineyard and land. The results were used to find out those steps in the production process in which actions were needed to reduce the environmental impact. This task was carried out by scientific experts, including, among the others, Agroinnova.

Data were also further elaborated to create a Sustainable Wine Label tracing the environmental quality of wines.The smartphones VIVA app was launched this month and can be used to read the label and find all the information as well as the results achieved by the specific wine producers in the framework of the project. This tool can be a very important incentive in order to involve other winemakers and, at the same time, to offer a guarantee of transparency to the consumers.

For more information on the project please visit the official website at this link.