Organic Certification

What are certified organic grapes? They are grapes grown without using insecticides and/or synthetic plant health care products. Control of and protection against grape fungi (such as downy and powdery mildews) is achieved thanks to cupric products and sulphur exclusively. Copper dosage is calculated by administering a maximum of 28 kg of metal copper per hectare in  7 years, resulting in a treatment of controlled micro doses of Bordeaux mixture combined with sulphur.  Grapevine Moth is treated organically too, namely with sex pheromone traps leading to effective mating disruption. Finally, infesting plants are countered strictly with inter-row clipping and soil tillage.

Synthetic chemical fertilisers are entirely avoided; fertilization is achieved through traditional manure only.

The certifying body monitoring the whole process is the Institute of Ethic and Environmental Certification (ICEA), approved by the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies. ICEA experts inspect organic vineyards by performing lab analyses of leaves and grapes in order to detect possible traces of unauthorized synthetic plant health care products.

Organic certification is obtained after three years of successful organic grape growing.

Annual production statement and official register entries of each vintage must be verified before the ICEA can authorize the official number of organic labels a given wine cellar may issue; labels display a specific code for each year of production, so that the inspection bodies can trace and verify each step of the process.