Unique rules
Bridging the territory between borders and regulations is impossible. A bureaucratic job. Those who work the land, those who live the precariousness of country life know that it is impossible to find univocal rules, because the conditions change “from palm to palm” and every year the rules are different even in geographically defined and limited areas such as that of Etna.
The wines of Italy
In the 1960s, in the Italian wine world, the wines of Southern Italy were too often improperly considered blending wines. This simplification shared all the wines and even the modest productive efforts of courageous workers who timidly entered the world of quality and complexity seemed to be thwarted by this archaic generalization. In those years we witnessed the great exodus of manpower from the countryside.
The phenomenon was all the more serious in those areas where agricultural production was particularly difficult and expensive. There was a lot of confusion and the Etna wine production struggled to find a strong identity due to the great fragmentation of the territory.
The Etna vineyard
it was going through a widespread crisis and the reasons had deep roots. The crisis, which began in 1888 due to the commercial break with France, had marked a real commercial watershed. In the years between 1860 and 1888 the vineyards on Etna had grown enormously, they were the main crop and little space was left for other crops.
- All the wine produced in the millstones and which was not consumed on the king’s place was in charge of the vinification within the property, it left from the port of Riposto thanks to the feverish activity it is worth noting like every farmer. It had gone from an export of about 500,000 hectoliters in 1878 to over 3.5 million in 1887.
An incredible economic and social development . About 85% of the exported wine sailed to France. The great economic benefits linked to trade with France and the euphoric increase in production had overshadowed the small mountain productions, places where millennia-old experiences were passed down, and whose wines, of high quality, were appreciated and exported to England, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Canada and Montevideo.
In February 1888, following the logic of commercial protectionism, the new customs duties came into force which, rising dramatically, thwarted any attempt to trade with France. The sudden closure of such an important market threw the whole sector into despair and desolation.
The whole supply chain was in crisis, many companies went bankrupt: traders, artisans, sawmills, coopers and of course farmers
- All the vineyards on the plain were first abandoned and later converted into citrus groves ; those in the higher altitudes of the volcano suffered a gradual but rapid abandonment, as the wine production at high altitudes.
