Le Strette: sustainable viticulture
“Certify” means “guarantee”.
From the beginning, Le Strette has based its wine production on sustainable viticulture, cultivating its vineyards in an ecological and rational way, according to the principles of integrated agriculture.
A great commitment over the years and made official for the first time in 2012 thanks to the sustainability certification according to the UNI: 11233 standard.
Since 2017, Le Strette is one of the first wineries in Italy to conform its production system to the National Integrated Production Quality System (SQNPI), a certification protocol recognized throughout the European Union. This protocol certifies compliance with agronomic and defense practices defined by the technical standards of the different regions and is based on principles of agricultural production, conducted according to the Integrated Agriculture method.
By integrating biological and technical methods and rationalizing the operational choices in the vineyard, chemical means are reduced to a minimum or eliminated, thus paying particular attention to the protection of the environment and natural resources and food safety, essential requirements for creating an authentic Piedmontese wine. with extraordinary organoleptic properties.
The company operates, in this way, making an important contribution to maintaining the natural ecosystem and, thus, to the Langhe area.
But what does it mean to work for sustainable wine and wine production?
For Le Strette, following the Integrated Agriculture Method means:
- Combine experience and technical knowledge, combining the protection of the territory with the pursuit of oenological excellence
- Rationalize interventions in the vineyard to reduce defense treatments as much as possible.
- Maintain fertility and soil balance in a natural way.
- Subject the grape raw material and the wine produced to multiresidual analyzes to verify the achievement of certain company objectives and the healthiness of the product itself.
How does this translate into sustainable viticulture?
«The system unfolds on various aspects, both organizational and operational. The heart is undoubtedly the management of the vineyards aimed at safeguarding the agro-environmental from multiple points of view.
These are some of the principles of our idea of viticulture, in the heart of Piedmont wine.
«We try to create optimal vegetative conditions that are less favorable to the development of diseases: thus we do not use chemical fertilizers in the soil, resorting, if necessary, to natural organic material (humus, manure,…), with contributions studied on the real needs of the plants.
For years now we have not used herbicides to control weeds, and mechanical processing is aimed at promoting controlled grassing aimed at green manuring, with positive implications also on fertility, soil structure and its microorganisms. In this way, biodiversity is favored, trying to create an environment favorable to natural balances (for example between beneficial and harmful insects, birds, etc.).
As for the defense, then, we do not use systemic products (except in conditions of exceptional risk), and we are attentive to innovations on environmentally friendly and natural products trying to stimulate plants to increase their self-defense capacity compared to the main adversities.
We aim for a decisive reduction in the use of copper and do not use insecticides, beyond the mandatory treatments for the containment of some physiopathies (flavescence).
The goal of these choices oriented towards eco-sustainable wine production is “to obtain a healthy raw material, healthy and balanced in its constituents, which will then be found in the wine, defining its quality”.
It is a serious system that integrates knowledge and strategies of various kinds.
Maintaining and respecting the natural ecosystem around the vineyards means thinking about long-term viticulture.
