Organic Agriculture is a vital part of Montemaggio’s daily operations – its a hard but very rewarding work.
A lot of factors go into deciding whether a wine can be given the coveted ‘organic’ status or not. Fact of the matter is that the standards for declaring a wine organic vary from country to country. When it comes to Italian organic wines, these are primarily awarded the title because of the front-end of the wine production process, i.e. the vineyard. Therefore, organic Italian wines are called so because of the natural process of growing grapes and tending to the vineyards i.e. the agricultural activity that goes into producing these vines. /p>
Organic Italian wines are produced only from the best grapes that have been obtained from the plants that have not been affected by chemicals, artificial fertilizers, pesticides, growth hormones or GMOs. Farmers are only allowed to use natural and hand-made concoctions as fertilizers and to guard the plants against insects or plant diseases. However, the organic status of these grapes does not take into account any work done on them during the rest of the winemaking process or in the cellar.
Organic Italian wines must get certified by at least one of the national and international certification organizations. Once certified, the organic grape wine is called biologico wine or vino biologico in Italian. These certification bodies may have different standards for judging the organic status of a wine, but once the status is awarded, you can be assured that the wine has been produced following organic farming practices. And organic wine producers are held in high esteem for holding up to these standards in the international wine market.
Interestingly enough though, there are some Italian wine producers who produce some amazing organic wines but don’t feel the need to get formally certified for their efforts. There are many factors behind their reasoning, the most prominent ones being the high costs associated with pursuing an organic certification from an international body as well as the lengthy time spent on compliance testing. To these wine-makers, what really matters is the excellent quality of the end-product that pretty much speaks for itself!
In Italy organic agriculture is getting more and more attention, but the rules and regulations that had to be followed are quite strict and rigid, therefore not every vineyard is able to follow all of them thoroughly. In order for an estate to be called Organic and receive a certification, it has to be in conversion for 3/4 years and only after that it could obtain an official certification. The checks of the cellar, vineyards, soil, samples of the wines are undertaken throughout the entire year by certified authorities which determine whether we can continue to call ourselves organic estate.