This year in Italy the harvest grape starts early

It's august and it's already time to harvest in Italy. In fact this summer the warm weather has done good things for the coming grape harvest. Hot days and cool nights have brought in an early crop and some vintners in the north have already begun collecting their white wine grapes.

Farmer’s organizations like Coldiretti (main italian organization) have predicted that if the current weather holds the yield will be large enough to maintain Italy’s position as the largest wine producer in the world.

Wine grapes

The harvesting of wine grapes is one of the most crucial steps in the process of winemaking. 

Traditional hand-harvesting and mechanical harvesting are the two routes that a winery can take to get the grapes off the vine and ready for crush. Hand-harvesting affords more precise selection and tends to do a better job of protecting the grape’s juice content from oxidation due to damaged skins. Mechanical harvesters allow for a more efficient, often cost-effective, process and are well-suited for large vineyards that lay on a flat patch of earth. The type of harvest - hand-picking, mechanical harvesters or a combination of the two, is largely influenced by the winemaker’s final wine style goals.

Country Analysis 2: preliminary insights

With respect to country analysis 2 we did a quick preliminary review of the seminar and training course material related to non-formal education, ie adult wine lovers and beginners.

The leading Austrian Wine Academy as a non-profit organization endorses the philosophy that ‘the more a country develops wine knowledge and culture, the more likely it is that this particular nation will expect and consume high quality wines’.

Without any deeper analysis so far, it seems to be that:

-        The training offers of the Austrian Wine Academy are mainly focused on historical, cultural and heritage aspects, sharing an interest in wine and food in the history, the varieties and the quality of Austrian wines. Topics of the Basic seminar are Austrian wine and its history within the famous wine areas, wine sensorik and wine presentation, tasting, table- and drink culture, but also aspects of viniculture, methods of vinification as well as the Austrian wine law.

-        That our target group (wine lovers and beginners) in view of trainers does not represent an endangered group with respect to misuse of wine (alcoholism).

-        The other aspects of RESDRI’s understanding what responsible drinking also means, namely health and prevention could not explicitly identified in the course material so far. We have to discuss it with our interview partners in detail as alcohol is a drug and drinking of alcohol including wine is part of our culture.

-        In countries with average income corresponding to approximately half of the world population is - according to WHO – alcohol misuse the largest risk factor of loss of years of life by illness and disability. However, the WHO is the only organ for global health to release legal binding conventions as this organization did – in the last 60 years – for breaking off epidemic diseases and tobacco consumption. This is a missed opportunity with respect to alcoholism to support countries in establishing their own legal basis.

In this respect we would like to draw your attention to a new (old) approach of alcohol prevention not aimed at zero alcohol consumption. The modern prevention training is focused on some kind of ‘controlled drinking’ by the so-called ‘droplet therapy’. Consumption reduction is standard in Great Britain and several times a year courses are offered in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; it seems to be a promising therapy complementing other established ones. Maybe RESDRI could consider this “controlled drinking” therapy under prevention http://www.spiegel.de/gesundheit/diagnose/alcoholentzug-kontrolliertes-trinken-ist besser-als-abstnenz-a-844209.html and others mentioned there.

`Resdri´ from German Point Of View

Responsible Drinking Flyer in Spanish

This is the flyer into Spanish Language

Responsible Drinking flyer in Slovenian

Responsible Drinking flyer in English

Responsible Drinking Flyer in German

Presentation_Prevention of Alcoholism/Youth Welfare

Article 1, May 2012

RESPONSIBLE DRINKING PROJECT

Partner Meeting in Hannover 18^th – 19^th April 2012

The partnership of the "RESDRI" project met for the second meeting in Hannover which was hosted by the VHS-Hannover Germany. On the first day, 15 participants from the partner´s organisations listened to the presentation of "Prevention of Alcoholism/Youth Welfare" by Frank Woike, social worker in Hannover. It is a whole year program, financed from the Municipality of Hannover, offering educational and controlling protection of young people following the idea „More fun – less alcohol“ for target groups of children and young people elder than 12; adults (parents, teachers, trainers) who are responsible for young people; schools, sports clubs, apprenticeships, retail, youth associations and institutions.  For a successful implementation of the program they cooperate with 12 partners (for example police, specialist departments for the prevention of alcohol and drug problems, the city‘s sports alliance) and the program is supported by six sponsors. The program is a mix of information and join-in actions in working fields in schools, sports-clubs, test shopping, alcohol-free cocktails (see the presentation "Prevention of Alcoholism/Youth Welfare").

All partners also visited the cellars of Duprès and Kollmeyer in Neustadt (`Schloss Landestrost´), who is the producer and dealer of (sparkling) wines (founded in 1650, still family owned).

Further, the partners also presented the results from Analysis 1: national and/or regional situation about the mapping and survey of training activities development about wine in each partner country. There had been more than 65 courses listed.

The consortium also talked about the evaluation of the project activities so far, about the next steps, the templates which need to be prepared for the mid-term report and about the meeting evaluation. The next meeting will be in Granada in Spain, hosted by PROIN. The main topics on the third meeting will be the results of the Analysis 2: “Wine courses activities, didactic programs, contents, methodology”.

Partners has defined next meetings for 2012 and 2013:

1. October 2012 – Granada - Spain
2. January 2013 – Wien – Austria
3. April 2013 – Slovenia
4. June 2013 – Graz – Austria

Olga Pregl, Vedoma, May 2012

Responsible Drinking Flyer in Italian

We have translated into italian the original flyer.