Regional Institute of Wine and Oil

Pantelleria sapling vine, a UNESCO heritage site

The agricultural practice of the sapling vine of Pantelleria has been included among the intangible heritage of humanity. A recognition that fills the IRVO team with great satisfaction and pride, made up of Lucio Monte, Francesca Salvia, Antonio Sparacio and Felice Capraro, who took care of the technical-scientific documentation. For the first time the high international body has attributed this recognition to an agricultural practice, recognizing its historical-cultural as well as identity value. The cultivation of vines on the island has, in fact, shaped the landscape over time, creating one of the most evocative agricultural contexts in the world. At the center of this scenario are the vine and the particular training system, the sapling one.

Its form of cultivation is the extraordinary result of an agriculture which, by supporting nature, has been able to achieve a record of viticultural excellence, studied and admired throughout the world. The low sapling farming system, in the valley, with a productive vegetative development close to the land, is unique and must be defended, protected and relaunched. The Italian delegation present at UNESCO was led by the permanent Italian representative Vincenza Lo Monaco, by Pier Luigi Petrillo, head of the UNESCO Office of the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, by the mayor of Pantelleria Salvatore Gabriele and by the extraordinary commissioner of IRVO Antonino Di James. Present for the Regional Department of Agriculture of the Sicilian Region were Dario Cartabellotta, Single Manager of the Sicilian Region for the Bio-Mediterranean Cluster of Expo Milano 2015, and Antonino Parrinello, head of cabinet of the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and of the Mediterranean Fisheries of the Sicilian Region.

The warm applause with which the assembly greeted the registration of the Italian candidacy for the Intangible Heritage of Humanity aroused great emotion. “A new recognition for Italy arrives today from Pantelleria – commented Vincenza Lo Monaco, permanent representative for Italy at UNESCO – This important achievement must be a further stimulus and an invitation, especially in view of the EXPO, to believe more in the potential of our traditions to give life to sustainable development, leveraging the productive culture of our territories". The Extraordinary Commissioner of the IRVO of the Sicilian Region, Antonino Di Giacomo, underlined the value of this recognition for the entire Sicilian wine system: “Sicily of wine lives on unique and unparalleled territorial excellence in terms of nature and biodiversity. Pantelleria is certainly the most particular expression. Now a universal protection intervenes which gives due credit to those small farmers who have managed to keep viticulture productive, in a difficult context such as that of the island of Pantelleria. This recognition comes at the conclusion of a great team effort which saw IRVO working in harmony with the Ministry of Agricultural Policies, the municipality of Pantelleria and the small producers of the island.” Petrillo, curator of the candidacy of the Alberello di Pantelleria for the Ministry of Agricultural Policies, followed the entire process from the beginning: "It is a very complex process, which began five years and ended today with the registration, for the first time in the world, of an agricultural practice in the list of World Heritage Sites. A path that began on the proposal of the Ministry and which found the consensus of over 180 UNESCO partner states". 

Today, in Pantelleria, the landscape designed by the vineyards is the sign of a balance achieved with nature thanks to the work of man and the awareness of respect for the environment. Terracing is the emblem of this union which then gave life to the culture of stone working from which the dammuso and the Pantelleria garden were born, structures necessary for practicing agriculture in an impervious production context.

“It is a great achievement for Italy and for Pantelleria – commented the mayor of Pantelleria – I believe it is a great bet, a great praise for a community which, over the centuries, has been able to transform inaccessible places into terraces where production is an extraordinary product. Now we must work with the Ministry and the Sicilian Region on a management plan for the sapling, where we can implement a whole series of activities to protect and enhance the agricultural practice and the Pantelleria vineyard".

Also representing Sicily in Paris is Cartabellotta: "By entrusting Pantelleria with the opening of the Cluster events at EXPO - he underlines - we recognize the primacy of a land which, between Europe and Africa, has been able to offer man the synthesis happier than the crops and cultures of the Mediterranean. A heritage of biodiversity that has ancient roots but which we want to carry intact into the future of the new generations."

The vineyard on Pantelleria can only count on human hands, there are no machines that can replace the farmer and his production sensitivity. On the terraces, often with extreme slopes, the vine is grown below ground level, in a large basin to protect the plant and the fruit from the sirocco and Greco Levante winds that blow very frequently and violently on the island. This practice is also useful for balancing the development of the aerial part with respect to the root part, so that the human hand can easily intervene on the vines throughout its vegetative-productive development. Precisely for this reason in Pantelleria we talk about heroic viticulture: the work, in fact, throughout the year requires a lot of hours of work, per unit used, which exceeds at least three times those necessary for the cultivation of a normal vineyard on the mainland.

Representing the Councilor for Agriculture, Rural Development and Mediterranean Fisheries of the Sicilian Region Antonino Caleca, the head of cabinet Antonio Parrinello spoke in Paris and commented as follows: "We welcome the news of the inclusion of the agricultural practice of pantelleria tree in the list of intangible assets of humanity with a feeling of enormous joy. Great satisfaction first of all for Pantelleria, the architect of this operation, and for all its farmers who, with their thousand-year-old tradition, have allowed this historic objective to be achieved. Today is a day of celebration not only for Pantelleria but also for all of Sicilian agriculture."

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