The Italian white wine zone of Lugana, an attractive parcel of countryside within spitting distance of Lake Garda, is struggling to maintain its integrity – in every sense of the word.
Some twenty years ago, in a flurry of good intentions, the European Union decided to create a high-speed train route that would link Lisbon to Kiev, cutting across the Lombardy plain in northern Italy. Though the route may be labeled as "high-speed", the actual process of constructing it has been anything but. During the ensuing period the project has encountered a series of setbacks, including Lisbon withdrawing its support and a loss of Italian government funding that halted progress for 11 years.
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Two months ago it became clear to the producers of Lugana that the Italian government intended to earmark an estimated 2 to 4 billion euros to start things rolling once again. The proposed track would connect the cities of Brescia and Verona and cut right through the Lugana zone, creating a loss of between 20-30 percent of the total vineyard area. Currently the zone produces around 12 million bottles annually, of which 65 percent are exported.
Paolo Fabiani from Tenuta Roveglia, a 100-hectare (250-acre) estate that produces 700,000 bottles a year, says the development will have a major impact on his winery.
Fabiani points out that the region already lost land to the transport network in the '60s when the A4 highway was built. He told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that he was expecting a 15 percent drop in sales due to a loss of visitors during the construction phase. Construction of the new track could begin as early as December and could take up to a decade to complete.
Gianfranco Dal Cero, one of the brothers behind the region's biggest winery, Ca dei Frati, was more resigned, telling the newspaper that his main concern now was to minimize the damage to not just his own vineyards, but to those of his colleagues as well.
Growers and wineries are presenting a united front to pressure politicians to listen to them.
"We immediately began working to unite not only the people in the zone but also in the region and throughout Italy, and not just wine producers, but also people who work in tourism as well as environmentalists and historians," says Carlo Veronese, director of the Lugana Consortium. "There is a bird reserve that is a real oasis for wildlife; the proposed tracks would be laid just a few meters from it. And there is a prehistoric pile-dwelling settlement, which UNESCO designated a World Heritage site, that would be affected."
The consortium has contacted Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi, and proposed an alternate plan whereby the link between Brescia and Verona could travel on existing tracks. This would save money as well as land resources. It is still unknown whether the consortium's suggestion will be accepted.
In the meantime, social media is being used by the #winelover group to galvanize support via the #SaveLugana campaign, supported by the Consortium, which has created both an Italian petition and an international one.
"We don’t want to stop the TAV [Treno ad Alta Velocità, or high-speed train], we just want to make the project more in line with the cultural attitudes of 2014, where economic factors go hand in hand with environmental ones," consortium president and winemaker of Selva Capuzza, Luca Formentini, said.
