Future trend tourism
Safety while Driving
Organic and biodynamic wines

 

Future trend tourism

Albergo diffuso is a new way of travelling by discovering the most fascinating corners of our country and at the same time respecting the environment.
It is usually located in little ancient hamlets, full of history and culture. It allows you to loose yourself in the local atmosphere, getting in touch with local people and becoming inhabitant of the village.
This new kind of accommodation is to be considered sustainable tourism in fact all the lodgings have no impact on the environment as they are obtained by renewing old typical buildings of the hamlet.
Our region offers a circuit of albergo diffuso which gives you the possibility of discovering the uncontaminated Friuli Venezia Giulia Mountains. It is an exclusive opportunity to live following the rhythm of the seasons and to discover the simple and friendly spirit of mountain people.
Fascinating cultural tours, walks discovering officinal herbs, visits to farms admiring milk production and other works done with ancient traditional instruments will make your holiday unforgettable.

Albergo diffuso makes your holiday become a life experience!

For further information:
http://www.clubalbergodiffuso.it

Safety while Driving

A rise in severity of alcohol controls and the related problems for wine lovers in cultivating their passion  for white or red wines are the reasons which frighten regular wine consumers. This lead them to be wise while tasting as, in the last 2 years, sanctions for drunken driving have been tightened.
On the other hand people who drive drunken could not be really drunk. The problem is that the new argued limit for blood alcohol concentration is fixed at 0.05 per cent. Above this limit,  people risk fancy fines or even car confiscation.

A lot of people in the wine world starts to consider that limit too high as well as the related sanctions.

Claudio Fabbro, oenologist and journalist, who followed this problem since long time and suggests four immediately applicable solutions to control the frightening phenomena of drunken driving: “ To educate and form young people to drink aware, to underline the importance of the motto “ do not drink and drive” , to restore the legally permitted concentration of alcohol in the blood of 0.08 for people over 21 years, like in England and Germany, and to increase alcohol controls during the night between midnight and 8 am”.

The Italian Oenologist Association already realized the importance of speaking about this problem and also the local associations are working to find some solutions.
There is in fact a project called “Wine Moderation” which plans to teach the students some simple but vital ideas about this problem. It is important to underline that wine could be a positive resource while not overindulging in drinking it. The best example is the one concerning bread.  If you eat 5 Kg of bread in a few hours it will be bad for your health, the same will occur for the wine consumption.
 The product should not be described as guilty.
It is important to hand down moderation and tasting culture to preserve first of all one’s health and it is also vital – Fabbro affirms finally – not to drive during the night if you have drunk something alcoholic”.

Organic and biodynamic wines

Nowadays everyone speaks about biodynamic agriculture. This special farming system or better this farming philosophy concerns also vine growing. Below are some information and some important opinions about this subject.
Biodynamic agriculture is a method of farming introduced by Rudolf Steiner in the 20s. He was an Austrian multidisciplinary scientist who suggested to consider the soil and life around it as parts of the same whole.

The two key ideas of Steiners’s biodynamic philosophy concern composting and moon phases. The biodynamic agriculture gives a lot of importance to the four natural elements: air, water, earth and fire. It is also vital to combine the lunar cycle to the different phases of soil working.
Biodynamic agriculture is not a brand new farming system but it emphasizes ancient traditions which aim to create a better and more harmonious environment. Let’s think about when everyone says it is better to cut your hair on waning moon or better when our grandparents studied the moon phases in order to establish when to sow the garden. But biodynamic agriculture is much more!
The aim of biodynamic agriculture is creating an healthy soil which will produce healthy grapes. These grapes will be expression of the terroir and will influence the quality of the wine. Biodynamic agriculture is based on balance: the soil should be kept balanced only with organic methods in order to obtain – speaking about wine – high quality grapes from healthy vines. 

The biodynamic approach excludes the use of artificial chemicals (fertilizers, phytomedicines, weed killers) or OGM and include the use of fermented natural and mineral preparations always following the moon and sun phases. The soil is worked with traditional methods in order to regenerate and revitalize it.
Here below a part of an interview made by the magazine Porthos (www.porthos.it) to Leonello Anello expert and promoter of the biodynamic agriculture in Italy.
 According to  Anello: “The real biodynamic approach is to work on the soil, because the main idea from where everything starts is the soil and not the plant. The biodynamic preparations aim to be accelerators…on the contrary preparations used by ancient farmers where not effective as every farmer could prepare them only on their own soil where only certain plants used to grow … this means that often it was not possible to find the right plants…what we can do now is to work on the soil, in order to give the plant the possibility of creating the right balance with the soil and the cosmos”.  
This is the way vines could develop healthy and strong roots which let them stand great heat or long rain periods. “The biodynamic agriculture does not beat Peronospora but it create vines which are capable of containing its wide spread …”.

Also cellar operations such as racking and bottling follow the lunar calendar. Usually no yeasts are added- the oenologist work with ripe and healthy grapes and the most ferments with its indigenous yeasts without any physical or chemical help.
“The biodynamic farmer should learn to know better his soil, should stop using chemical preparations and should realize that planets have a great influence…”.
The correct definition is wine “made with biodynamic grapes” because, as for “organic wine”, it does not exist any vinification rule. At the moment there is nor any Italian neither any international biodynamic production rule. The only possible control is made on the grapes which should be cultivated following the biodynamic agriculture. (A clarification: unlike biodynamic agriculture, organic agriculture assures only a natural environment and production balance using low environmental impact products and excluding the use of artificial chemicals and OGM.)

Finally some remarks from Leonello Anello’s interview which open the debate and suppose further development: “… Everyone speaks about biodynamic agriculture but few people really work in a biodynamic way, that’s why it isn’t spread and there hasn’t been a real boom: a lot of discussions and few practice… farmers lost their knowledge because for many years they got all the information only through people who wanted to sell them their chemical products …nowadays farmers start to regain their knowledge and to understand that, for example, pathologies are not such a misfortune…”