E-WINE “European Wine Innovative E-learning”
NEWSLETTER– SPECIAL ISSUE 2010 E-WINE MEETING IN MONTALCINO
E-WINE Partners Meet a “Cellar of Excellence” in Winemaking
The crucial task of generating E-WINE didactic content is now starting. Project partners facing this challenging task chose to meet in a very suitable place.
A world renowned “cellar of excellence” was therefore involved in shaping the distance learning of European cellarmen: “Cantine Banfi” in Montalcino, Tuscany, Italy. The fascinating story of their top level “Brunello di Montalcino” is very briefly recalled in another part of this newsletter.
The “headline news” of this special edition are not dedicated to brands promotion but rather to project partners decision to select E-WINE “knowledge provider” on the basis of a careful balance between respect for tradition and attention to market, between territory identity and trends evolution, between assessed experience and technology innovation.
Such a complex and always dynamic equilibrium is not only the definition of E-WINE training content for European cellarmen, it may also be acknowledged as the essential definition of the European confrontation with the challenging globalized world, particularly with the now pervasively globalized winemaking industry.
Now we can proudly claim that actual and future European cellarmen, when testing E-WINE distance learning, will be provided with access to winemaking knowledge developed precisely at the meeting point between past and future, heritage and business, assets and risks, i.e. at the point where all European opportunities are expected to stem from.
Pilgrimage to roots of tradition and sprouts of innovation
Although the place chosen by E-WINE partners to inaugurate their Didactic Content Working Group is acknowledged as best international wine destination by the authoritative Forbes magazine, project participants spent much more time in observing winemaking organization and technology rather than in tasting winemaking results.
Presently widespread interest for “fascinating” cellars, when well maintained and carefully run, left behind many memories of ordinary cellars considered just mere production places, not particularly clean nor particularly friendly to visitors.
“Open” cellars as those inspected by E-WINE partners in Montalcino provide not only excellent image of their owners but also precious material for tutorials. Partners chose to start their first “trainers’ training session” with this direct observation of state-of-the-art winemaking. Each production stage, from vineyards to bottles, shall be explained in distance learning modules with pictures and examples taken from such a real context. The learning pattern followed by a cellarman when operating in this traceable working place is what E-WINE intends to reproduce through learning objects.
The tangible symbol of winemaking effort to join tradition with innovation was at the centre of E-WINE partners’ attention during the meeting.
The precious effects of wood barrels in wine fermentation are so well known that it is not necessary to recall them. The much easier processing and maintenance procedures which can be applied in stainless barrels are abundantly assessed as well.
Cantine Banfi developed patented hybrid fermentation barrels in order to exploit the advantages of both materials, solving complex joining problems due to different materials properties (e.g. thermal expansion coefficients).
Another lesson learnt during the meeting concerns the territory valorization strategies which may be pursued by oenologists and cellarmen. Montalcino countryside was being transformed into a wheat production district in the years of world wars because of governmental policies addressed at preventing food shortage. Moreover the market of the once most renowned local wine, Moscatello di Montalcino, was confined within the relatively narrow niche of dessert wines. A few landowners insisted in maintaining winemaking against the easier but short-sighted choice of vineyards estates transformation into wheat fields. They also concentrated their efforts in valorization of another local wine, the now world renowned Brunello di Montalcino, because of its wider market potential. The later interest by international traders and investors provided the resources necessary to Brunello astonishing success, but the basis for present days Montalcino excellence was provided by local commitment to both territory identity and commercial opportunities.
Meet E-WINE Countries one by one: Cyprus
The sometimes very intense and bright color of some Cypriot white wines seems to recall the ancient identification of this insular nation with its first internationally appreciated product, namely copper, so much exported in the earliest millennia of Mediterranean history that the English name of the metal, through the Latin word cuprum, simply reproduces the ancient (and modern) Greek name of the island, Kupros. Soon (probably not too many centuries before Egyptian pyramids were built…) Cypriot wine started to rank second (in terms of age) among Cyprus export products. After those remote times many real or fictional stories were played by history or by poets in this Venus birthplace (“Othello” being just the most successful one) and wine too had the chance to play roles in the plots.
Nowadays τhe winemaking industry in Cyprus is paying tribute both to tradition and modernity, and has made important steps towards becoming one of the high quality wine countries of the Eastern Mediterranean. The country boasts a variety of important events related to wine, such as award ceremonies and wine tastings and it appears that the market is currently in need of people which will be able to aid the winery organization. Evidently, many opportunities to exploit winemaking knowledge, to be provided by E-WINE distance learning, are offered to future Cypriot cellarmen, whenever they would test E-WINE services and networking cooperation
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