With a unanimous vote, UNESCO recently added to its prestigious World Heritage list a grape cultivation technique used on the Sicilian island of Pantelleria.
Pantelleria growers employ the ‘vite ad alberello’ technique, which dates back at least 1,000 years, to grow their prized Zibibbo or Alexandrian Muscat grapes used to make the volcanic island’s prized Passito wines.
Zibibbo di Pantelleria is North African in origin and is believed to have been introduced to the island by the Phoenicians, and the terraces where the grapes are grown date back to Arab domination. Elsewhere today, Zibibbo is generally cultivated using the more modern ‘spurred cordon’ technique, but Pantelleria maintains the old ‘vite ad alberello’ method, which involves pruning to create bush vines. (See theflr.net/wt80ql to read an explanation on the UNESCO website.)
To achieve the sugar content needed to make Zibibbo dessert wine, the grapes are gathered by hand after late ripening and laid out to dry on matting before being pressed. The committee behind the proposal commented in Paris, ‘No country, other than Italy, has ever been able to have an agricultural practice included on the list.’ The proposal took four years to draft, and all 161 countries were unanimous in their recognition of Pantelleria’s practice as a piece of world heritage.
Italy’s minister of agricultural policies, Maurizio Martina, stated, ‘We are very proud of the fact that Italy has scored another mark of great quality as far as UNESCO is concerned … This recognition will help Sicily and its farming practices.’
