Allez les rouges… et blancs et rosés!

EXCLUSIVE – Slow Food has called on 1,000 European vine and wine growers to attend a major meeting, ‘Vignerons d’Europe’, in Montpellier on April 14-15. The event is the fruit of reflections that the movement has elaborated over the years on the role of sustainable vine growing on the continental productive scene.

The European wine industry is currently undergoing changes and developments that sometimes fail to take account of the vigneron’s central role. One relatively recent example is the European Commission’s draft document on the future arrangement of the sector.

It is precisely to reassert the vigneron’s vital role, to reestablish the primacy of land over cellar and confirm the primary importance of quality production over marketing that Slow Food is calling to Montpellier the leading players — small producers, farmers, vignerons of every region and rank —in a performance that is repeated every year, renewing the miracle of the wine harvest and the transformation of the grape into wine.

Participants will flock from all over Europe — from the Langa district in Italy and the Moselle in France, to the Douro in Portugal and the Tokay in Hungary, from the Cinque Terre in Italy to the Island of Rhodes in Greece — to discuss the future of an endangered skill: that of the vigneron.

An opening plenary meeting on Saturday April 14 will be followed by theme workshops on European legislation and the notions of ‘terroir’ and ‘vigneron’ . The get-together will conclude with a second plenary meeting on the morning of Sunday April 15. ‘Vignerons d’Europe’ will be held in the Congress Center in Montpellier, capital of the Languedoc wine district.

Info: [email protected], Giancarlo Gariglio 0172 419683