To fulfill the Equalitas Standard, which has certified us as a sustainable winery since 2021, this year our one of our main commitments is to increase biodiversity.
Properly committing to the defense of biodiversity in the vineyard implies making a whole series of precise, reasoned and weighted choices: from the vine density in order not to exploit the soil until exhaustion, to organic viticulture which forces us to abandon fertilizers and pesticides, to the protection of uncultivated fields.
This last point, the protection of areas not planted with vines, is one of the requirements that Equalitas asks all wineries with more than 15 hectares. Starting from the second year of certification there are 5 points to work on to fulfill:
- At least 5% of the total area must be traced back to arable areas
- Semi-natural areas must be identified and a model for improving their functions must be studied
- Woods, areas with a good presence of water and more generally semi-natural areas must be protected by buffer strips of at least 3 meters from other areas that could be treated differently
- The life of pollinating insects must be encouraged and protected by sowing suitable crops on at least 1% of the land owned by the company.
- The landscape in which the company is located must be respected.
The first 3 points of this list and the last one weren’t a source of change for us. We had already adopted behaviors that had led us to satisfy them naturally. In recent months we have worked on the 4th point.
We have seeded one of our fields with a mix of flowers that have different flowering times throughout the year. In this way we are going to attract pollinating insects during all 4 seasons. This operation will help us not only meet the requirements of the Equalitas Standard, but we will go to increase the biodiversity on our estates.
