On Friday 9th October, at Intesa SanPaolo Waterstone hall at Expo Milan, Bava has introduced BAVA.GREEN – the sustainable wine, the manifesto of good practices that the winery – based in Cocconato, in Monferrato Astigiano – follows from the vineyard to the cellar and the marketing of its wines.
BAVA.GREEN – The sustainable wine is the story of a wine family who has adopted sustainability as a real productive philosophy, with an impact on the wines and on the environment where they’re generated.
Expo meeting, in line with the manifestation themes, has been an opportunity to enjoy the view of hills covered with vineyards in the viticultural Piedmont – patrimony of the Unesco – and to share a simple story, all Italian.
“We believe – explain Roberto, Paolo and Giulio Bava who manage the company together with their father Piero– that there won’t be any future without agriculture (“Pas d’avenir sans agriculture” our French cousins say). In the course of these years, we’ve collected our notes and ideas about the environment, for making healthier and better agricultural productions, up to draft a Manifesto which inspires our everyday work, both in the vineyard and in the cellar. A collection of stories with the unmistakable beauty of real life”.
Wooden poles in the vineyards instead of the concrete ones (“In a year we planted 18,000 wooden poles. And not iron or concrete – the trees grow back, quarries and mines run out”). Grass growing among the rows of vines (“A blade of grass is as strong as a tree! In our vineyards, planting grass in the rows and in the bordering streets, we protect hills from erosion”). The use of natural fertilizers (“We believe that the best way to re-use vine pruning is to leave it between the rows, together with mulches and grass mowing, so that the microorganisms in the soil can transform them in natural fertilizers.”). As well as modern devices, such as the solar panels: “To grow vines we don’t need electricity but we do need it to make wine. That is why we’ve covered the roofs of our farm shed with photovoltaic panels that meet 150% of our cellar needs. They tell us that in this way we avoid the introduction of 100 tons of CO2 per year, equivalent to a consumption of 500,000 liters of oil. Our electricity bill is zero.”
These and other stories on sustainability were presented by Roberto and Francesca Bava together with journalist Sergio Miravalle during the Expo meeting and they’re available on the company webpage.