VIA Verona 2025 Advanced Seminar with Professor Attilio Scienza: Vocation is the true heritage of wine-producing regions

The 2nd day of VIA Verona 2025 Flagship Course got off to a blazing start with VIA's Chief Scientist, Professor Attilio Scienza presenting the first VIA Advanced Seminar of 2025, "Vocation is the True Heritage of Vine-Producing Regions".

It is always an honor and a huge pleasure to have Professor Scienza live and in person for VIA. He recently celebrated his 80th birthday and his new book, "The Art of Wine Storytelling" is hot off the press. VIA will celebrate its 10th anniversary, Scienza’s birthday, the new book, and the soon to be newly minted Italian Wine Ambassadors at a special soirée at Bellavista in Franciacorta on Monday 31 March.

HERITAGE

Today, Il Professore gave a fascinating 90 minutes discourse on how the concepts of heritage and vocation can be used to secure the future of viticulture. With an excellent live translation by Italian Wine Podcast team member Richard Hough, Scienza explained that heritage is not just memory; rather, it is part of the present. It is the patrimony inherited from the past and is deeply rooted in history and culture, while vocation is a calling, a predisposition; just as some people have a vocation for the medical profession, vineyards have a vocation for the production of quality wines.

Italy has a very rich legacy of wine terroirs, with 92 micro-winegrowing areas and great biodiversity. Every zone in Italy has its own methods of cultivation and historic vineyards. Each place develops its own particular characteristics that play a crucial part in the local winemaking tradition. The development of precise areas, such as Additional Geographical Units (UGAs) in Barolo, help us to understand that these particular characteristics demonstrate the unique vocation of a particular region. 

Italy's wine heritage encompasses historic families, such as Antinori, Incisa della Rocchetta, Guerrieri Gonzaga, Ferrari Lunelli, and Tasca d'Almerita. Over generations, these families have developed close associations with their territory and become formidable symbols of their region and the strength of their brand.

VOCATION

Professor Scienza described viticultural vocation as "the special suitability of a place for the production of wine with particular characteristics". A vineyard has an essence that is unchangeable despite human intervention, climate change and other influences. Humans do not always respect nature and sometimes try to control and disrupt that balance instead. We must understand that, while the essence of the vineyard remains, the vocation of a wine-growing area can change over time. Phenomena such as climate change, consumer trends, the globalization of viticulture, and the march of innovation will affect productivity over time.

Professor Scienza explained how a wine can remain the same despite changes in weather from year to year, due to the specific unchanging characteristics of the vineyard, such as soil, altitude, and so on. Only sparkling wines have had to move vineyard location due to climate change, as they require cooler temperatures and greater day to night temperature inversion in order to retain the high level of acidity needed to make the wine. He commented that all vineyards benefit from diurnal temperature inversion, and the key element is the amount of difference between the highest and lowest temperatures.

Scienza compared Old World (French) vocation to New World vocation by pointing out that the French model is terroir based, with the belief that the character of pedoclimate and grape variety are decisive for the originality of the wine. The New World model considers the sensory style of the wine to be the result of enologist technique and expectation of consumers. Scienza makes the point that we must move back to the French model and focus on educating our enologists and consumers to understand the benefits of making wine based on vineyard vocation, with less chemical, mechanical, and "unnatural" intervention.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR VITICULTURE

The new viticultural vocation, as Scienza explained, takes into account not only the strict sense of the vineyard vocation, such as location, grape variety, and cultivation, but also the lateral sense of vocation – the environmental surroundings and chemical interventions that are taking place near the vineyard. Viticulture is facing many challenges, including climate change and issues surrounding sustainability; however, Scienza insists these are also opportunities, not just problems. 

We must rethink the value of soils, their rich biodiversity, and that of the surrounding environment. Ploughing techniques must be considered as well. Mechanization brought about ploughs capable of ripping, lifting, and disrupting soils in the name of fast and deep ploughing results. Scienza says we must remember that "soil is not a chaotic mass of materials; soil has become particularly organized over time, with each layer having its unique place and role". More effective ploughing methods involve the use of tools that slice the soil like a cake, without disrupting the complex layers. "Respecting the integrity of the soil profile is crucial".

REGENERATIVE VITICULTURE

Vines and forests share an important evolutionary past, which we must study in order to encourage regenerative viticulture. For thousands of years, vines and trees grew together, the trees supporting the vine – an extraordinary plant that can grow one centimeter every day. Vines cannot survive alone, they need support. Vines and trees "speak" to each other by emitting organic compounds (BVOCs) which help the vines to adapt and defend against disease, insects, and other threats. Before phylloxera, "there was a 'marriage' of sorts between vines and surrounding plants". After phylloxera, humans forced the vine to grow alone, limiting its location and losing the biodiversity previously present in and around the vineyard. This biodiversity must be reclaimed in order to recreate the natural balance between plants, insects, and animals. Vines can "understand" their environment much better when there are other plants to interact with, and defend themselves and adapt to challenges.

Scienza presented the concept of biomimicry, as he discussed the importance of learning how to use 2 billion years of plant evolution to improve vine adaptation to climate change, and to find genetic material to resist disease. Chemical compounds belonging to particular plants are released in nature (such as when we smell wild mint or wild garlic), and these compounds have an important function in plant "communication", including repelling disease and insects. Trees and forests can also have a cooling effect, as the plants transform water in the air into a cooling vapor that can reduce the temperature. Forests surrounding vineyards have also been shown to reduce vine disease by as much as 50%.

NATURAL WINE

Surprising some of the students, Scienza pronounced, "there is no such thing as natural wine", ever since humans intervened in nature, domesticated vines, and disrupted vineyards and biodiversity. Modern viticulture can become more sustainable, but this will require a cultural shift, as well as a more scientific approach. "Being 'natural' means we have to reduce the unnatural influences in winemaking; we can use DNA, the surrounding environment and the soil to create sustainability", Scienza explained.

THE FUTURE

Regenerative viticulture requires agroecology, using site selection, design criteria in viticulture, plant material, water management, soil fertility, and biodiversity management for success. Reducing waste and using recyclable materials will also be important. In response to a question from the audience, Scienza explained how scientists already know the volume of forest and plants we need for each vineyard to flourish naturally, we know which plants will help combat disease and insects – now we must develop a culture that supports this type of agroecology and regenerative viticulture in order to protect and provide for the successful future of vines.