Passion, quality and transparency: the Salcheto Winery
Posted on 18. Mar, 2011 by admin in Archive, Food & Wine
How to combine the excellence of products as wine with the respect for environment? This is an indissoluble tie: projects like the eco sustainable winery Salcheto, in Montepulciano. Thanks to the most modern technologies and to the alternative energies (geothermal science, biomasses, photovoltaic, green building), the Salcheto reduces to zero the carbon footprint (the CO2 emissions).
We wanted to know more about that, so we interviewed the managing director of Salcheto, Michele Manelli, that kindly answered to our questions.
The highest quality of Noble wine of Montepulciano matches with the optimization of the territorial resources, an example to follow. The owners of Salcheto had invited, not by chance, at Italian Wine Masters in Tokyo, an important signal that shows the interest for Italy, that is again on the cutting edge.
How the eco sustainable winery was born?
Was the consequence of a renewal and an enlargement needed both for enological and productive aspect. When the entrepreneurial project was prepared, I realized that a true energetically independent system was possible, more than an ecological winery.
Now we continue to face new challenges, like for packaging or for the tractor, fueled by alternative energies.
The packaging is a plus for Salcheto. Tell us how you met Michel Gondry (that drew the labels of Salco Evoluzione 2004) and which artists will collaborate with you?
Often we met artists like Michel by word of mouth, thanks to our friends, in this case the producer Raffi Adlan that I thank also for his collaboration to the project. The idea is inspired to the “free communication”, a way to express yourself without any conditioning. Now we are working on Salco 2005 with designers from the weaving factory of wood, but I cannot tell more at the moment. About 2006 vintage, we are working on a japanese Manga on the label.
How to combine the passion for a good wine with care for new productive technologies and respect for environment? I’m convinced that the highest expressions of human being are versatile and we find this plurality also in historical figures that ranged from painting to mechanics or from poetry to politics.
The cultural and technological evolution created different contexts where to apply those positive instincts. There is one and only morally evolved aim in the life of a wine producer: make a good product that respects his environment and the history of his territory, exploiting the technological innovations that will help him in this venture.
Impact on environment and quality: not all the producers are agree that a good match is possible, you think that other people will follow your example?
I don’t understand why the respect for environment could be subordinate to others priorities: the climatic change is evident! Also if you live in Tuscany, that is less polluted, the glass of bootles is made in a place similar to “pianura padana” (really polluted). The only incompatible thing is about the investments requested to reduce the impact, certainly not the quality of the product.
I hope that in Europe the customers will say no to the poor products that aren’t qualified under the environmental aspect, not only wine but all the products, that have to respect the human rights.
More info on the official site: salcheto.it
